Ethiopia receives debt relief totaling 3.6 bln. USD from the World Bank
The World Bank announced that it has totally canceled the International Development Association (IDA) debt of Ethiopia under the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI).
The bank has also said Ethiopia’s economic growth performance over the past two years has been very strong and broad based.
The World Bank in its press release said Ethiopia received an overall debt relief of 3.616 billion USD starting on July 1, 2006, under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative.
Additional debt relief will help Ethiopia channel resources into programmes that directly help the people who need it most – the poor who need and deserve a better education, better health services, greater access to clean water, and greater opportunities to escape poverty, the press release quoted World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz as saying.
The release also said the debt relief Ethiopia enjoyed under the HIPC Initiative would enable it attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Ethiopia has also made important gains on human development indicators, the release said and added that these gains have been fueled by an increase in pro poor spending from 39 per cent of the budget in 1999/2000 to 54 per cent in 2005/06.
（from Walta International on July 07, 2006）
