2005 Gleneagles Accord |
Negotiations on the mechanism of debt relief dragged on across the first years of the millennium. The debt-holding nations had decided in principle to forgive their bilateral debt, but the mechanism through which the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank would discharge their obligations remained a sticking point. Finally in 2005, just in advance of the G8 summit in Gleneagles (Scotland), Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George Bush reached an accord on allowing the World Bank and IMF to write-off the over $16 billion owed to them by poor nations. This agreement was then brought to a meeting of the G8 finance ministers by Gordon Brown and then formally ratified by the leaders of the G8 in Gleneagles. Sadly, this moment of triumph for debt forgiveness advocates was overshadowed by bombings in London by Al Qaeda-inspired terrorists that took the lives of 52 commuters and injured 700.
Links
The New York Times reports on the agreement reached by British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. President George W. Bush prior to the G8 meeting at Gleneagles.
New York Times story on the results of the Gleneagles summit.
Ann Pettifor, the former director of the Jubilee 2000 campaign, praises various individuals for the agreement on debt.
BBC story clarifies questions about the debt agreement.
This DATA (Debt AIDS Trade Africa) report reviews the process through which countries are certified for debt relief and assesses the progress of the Gleneagles agreement two years on.