World Bank Cancels Ghana’s IDA Debts

The World Bank has started cancelling Ghana’s International Development Association (IDA) debt under the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI).

The process, which started on July 1, will see Ghana receiving 4.429 billion dollars being the total amount of additional IDA debt relief provided under the MDRI and the IDA portion of debt relief already committed under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC).

It is made up of an estimated 2,983 billion dollars and another 1,446 billion dollars MDRI relief in IDA debt relief.

A news release issued by the World Bank in Washington quoted the bank’s president, Paul Wolfowitz, as saying, “We have secured a level of financing commitments from donors that allow us to begin implementing the multilateral debt relief initiative.”

“Since graduating from the HIPC initiative, Ghana had made noticeable progress in several key areas with the poverty headcount declining from seven per cent in 1997 to 35 per cent in 2003. Current projections suggest that Ghana should reach the MDGs of halving the 1990 poverty rate before 2015,” it said.