Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Verma on 31 March 2016 (HL7304), how much the UK has paid to (1) the African Development Fund, and (2) the International Development Association, in relation to the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative; and which qualifying countries have been unable to reduce their debt export ratio.

In 2005, the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative was supplemented by the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI). The MDRI allows for the cancellation of debts to multilateral organisations and has been supported by the UK since inception.

Based on information from the World Bank Debt Relief Trust Fund and MDRI records, we calculate that the UK has provided £226 million to the African Development Fund (AfDF) and £808 million to the International Development Association (IDA) for foregone payments in relation to the HIPC Initiative since1996.

In its September 2017 Statistical report, the IMF states that between 2001 and 2015, the average debt service to export ratio for countries which have completed the HIPC process fell from 17.5% to 6.2%. Only 7 of the 36 countries did not have lower ratios of debt to exports in 2015 than in 2001 - Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania and Mozambique – and all but two of these countries still have debt service to export ratios of below 10%.