Enhancing International Cooperation Towards a Durable Solution to the External Debt Problem of Developing Countries

A/RES/57/240No PDF available

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 84dExternal debt crisis and development, published in 2003.

What other versions does this mandate have?

7 versions · 1996–2003

2003A/RES/57/240Enhancing international cooperation towards a durable solution to the external debt problem of developing countriesLatestCompare with previous version
2001A/RES/55/184Enhancing international cooperation towards a durable solution to the external debt problem of developing countriesCompare with previous version
2000A/RES/54/202Enhancing international cooperation towards a durable solution to the external debt problem of developing countriesCompare with previous version
1999A/RES/53/175Enhancing international cooperation towards a durable solution to the external debt problem of developing countriesCompare with previous version
1998A/RES/52/185Enhancing international cooperation towards a durable solution to the external debt problem of developing countriesCompare with previous version

Versions are identified automatically by matching titles within the same organ (~97% accuracy on a manual audit).

What subjects does this mandate have?

17 topics

Bretton Woods Institutions Capacity Building Conferences Debt Relief Debt Servicing Developing Countries Development Assistance External Debt Institution Building International Financial Institutions Investments Natural Disasters Poverty Mitigation Private Sector Report Preparation Sustainable Development Technical Cooperation

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

1 report of the Secretary-General submitted under this mandate, 2003.

2003A/58/290External debt crisis and development report of the Secretary-General

Identified automatically from the metadata in each report’s UN Digital Library catalogue record.

What does this mandate say?

25 operative paragraphs

Reaffirms the determination, as expressed in the United Nations Millennium Declaration,2 to deal comprehensively and effectively with the debt problems of low- and middle-income developing countries, through various national and international measures designed to make their debt sustainable in the long term;

Recognizes that creditors and debtors must share the responsibility for preventing and resolving unsustainable debt situations and that debt relief can play a key role in liberating resources that should be directed towards activities consistent with attaining sustainable growth and development, including poverty reduction and the achievement of the development goals set out in the Millennium Declaration, and in this regard urges countries to direct those resources freed through debt relief, in particular through debt cancellation and reduction, towards these objectives;

Stresses that sustainable debt financing is an important element for mobilizing resources for public and private investment, and that national comprehensive strategies to monitor and manage the external liabilities embedded in the domestic preconditions for debt sustainability, including sound macroeconomic policies and public resource management, are a key element in reducing national vulnerabilities;

Recalls the call on industrialized countries, as expressed in the Millennium Declaration, to implement the enhanced programme of debt relief for the heavily indebted poor countries without further delay and to agree to cancel all official bilateral debts of those countries in return for their making demonstrable commitments to poverty reduction, including through poverty reduction strategy papers, where appropriate, and in this regard welcomes the decision of those countries that have already done so, emphasizing that debt relief complementary to the framework be treated as additional;

Calls upon the heavily indebted poor countries to take, as soon as possible, the policy measures necessary to become eligible for the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative and to reach the decision point;

Stresses the need to pursue, where appropriate, debt relief measures vigorously and expeditiously, by all creditors, including within the Paris and London Clubs and other relevant forums, so as to contribute to debt sustainability and facilitate sustainable development;

Welcomes initiatives that have been undertaken to reduce outstanding indebtedness;

Calls upon the international community, including the United Nations system, and invites the Bretton Woods institutions as well as the private sector, to take appropriate measures and actions for the implementation of the commitments, agreements and decisions of the major United Nations conferences and summits, in particular those relating to the question of the external debt problem of developing countries, and in this regard stresses the need:

To implement speedily, effectively and fully the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative, which should be fully financed through additional resources, while stressing the need for fair, equitable and transparent burden-sharing among the international public creditor community and other donor countries, and take into consideration, as appropriate, measures to address any fundamental changes in the economic circumstances of those developing countries that have an unsustainable debt burden caused by natural catastrophes, severe terms-of-trade shocks or conflict, taking into account initiatives that have been undertaken to reduce outstanding indebtedness;

To bring about a sustained commitment on the part of the heavily indebted poor countries to improvements in domestic policies and economic management, to support capacity-building for the management of financial assets and liabilities, to ensure full participation and delivery of relief by all affected creditors, to ensure adequate and sufficiently concessional financing by international financing institutions and the donor community, and to consider an early review of the difficult issues of HIPC-to-HIPC debt relief and creditor litigation;

To bring international debtors and creditors together in relevant international forums to restructure unsustainable debt in a timely and efficient manner, taking into account the need to involve the private sector in the resolution of crises due to indebtedness, where appropriate;

To acknowledge the problems of the debt sustainability of some low-income countries that are not heavily indebted, in particular those facing exceptional circumstances;

To reduce the unsustainable debt burden of developing countries through such actions as debt relief and, as appropriate, debt cancellation and other innovative mechanisms geared to comprehensively addressing the debt problems of developing countries, in particular the poorest and most heavily indebted ones;

To encourage exploring innovative mechanisms to comprehensively address the debt problems of developing countries, including middle-income countries, and countries with economies in transition; such mechanisms may include debt-for-sustainable-development swaps, or multi-creditor debt swap arrangements, as appropriate;

To establish effective debt-tracking mechanisms in developing countries and strengthen technical assistance for external debt management and debt tracking, including through enhanced cooperation and coordination between organizations providing assistance in this regard;

To take steps to ensure that resources provided for debt relief do not detract from official development assistance resources intended to be available for developing countries and that the debt relief arrangements seek to avoid imposing any unfair burden on other developing countries;

To welcome consideration by all relevant stakeholders of an international debt-work-out mechanism, in the appropriate forums, the adoption of which should not preclude emergency financing in times of crisis, to promote fair burden-sharing and minimize moral hazard, which will engage debtors and creditors to come together to restructure unsustainable debts in a timely and efficient manner;

To establish a set of clear principles for the management and resolution of financial crises that provide for fair burden-sharing between the public and private sectors and among debtors, creditors and investors, while recognizing that a flexible mix of instruments is needed to respond appropriately to the varying economic circumstances and capacities of different countries;

Stresses the importance of continued flexibility with regard to the eligibility criteria for the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative, in particular for countries in post-conflict situations, and the need to keep the computational procedures and assumptions underlying debt sustainability analysis under review;

Emphasizes the need to help bring about initial recovery in heavily indebted poor post-conflict countries, in coordination with the international financial institutions, to help clear, as appropriate, the arrears of those countries vis-à-vis international financial institutions;

Reaffirms that reviews of debt sustainability should also bear in mind the impact of debt relief on progress towards the achievement of the development goals set out in the Millennium Declaration and the fact that debt sustainability analysis at the completion point needs to take into account any worsening global growth prospects and declining terms of trade;

Notes that it is important for the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to continue their efforts to strengthen the transparency and integrity of debt sustainability analysis and to consider any fundamental changes in countries’ debt sustainability caused by natural catastrophes, severe terms-of-trade shocks or conflict when making policy recommendations, including for debt relief, as appropriate;

Stresses the need to strengthen the institutional capacity of developing countries in debt management, calls upon the international community to support the efforts made towards this end, and in this regard stresses the importance of such initiatives as the Debt Management and Financial Analysis System, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank guidelines for public debt management, and the debt-management capacity-building programme;

Requests the Secretary-General to submit a report to the General Assembly at its fifty-eighth session on the implementation of the present resolution and to include in that report a comprehensive and substantive analysis of the external debt and debt-servicing problems of developing countries, inter alia, those resulting from global financial instability;

Decides to include in the provisional agenda of its fifty-eighth session, under the item entitled “Macroeconomic policy questions”, the sub-item entitled “External debt crisis and development”.

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