The World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as the leading lending agencies, have been under mounting pressure to deal with a wide range of debt sustainability challenges. The challenges have refused to subside. Instead they continue to stimulate urgent need for a new debt sustainability framework and debt management orientation that can allow for the borrowing economies to break the vicious circle of unending distress. The Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) framework and the 2005 G8 Debt deal which is generally a compromise of the US and UK proposals are yet to shake down into a coherent. | UNCTAD DMFAS 5th Inter-regional Debt Management Conference 20-24th June 2005 Presentation Operationalizing Debt Sustainability By Charles Mutasa1 . Introduction The World Bank WB and the International Monetary Fund IMF as the leading lending agencies have been under mounting pressure to deal with a wide range of debt sustainability challenges. The challenges have refused to subside. Instead they continue to stimulate urgent need for a new debt sustainability framework and debt management orientation that can allow for the borrowing economies to break the vicious circle of unending distress. The Heavily Indebted Poor Countries HIPC framework and the 2005 G8 Debt deal which is generally a compromise of the US and UK proposals are yet to shake down into a coherent strategic compact with the poor countries of the borrower economies capable of addressing unsustainability challenges facing the debt burden of all the poor economies of the South. The current initiatives to tackle the Third World debt crisis have been designed to provide sustainability measures and debt management orientations that are capable of guiding borrowing decisions of low-income countries in such a way as to match their need for funds with their ability to service debt. The Debt initiatives proposed by the G8 since 1996 have left the vital question of debt justice unanswered. And this is where the problem hides as it surreptitiously haunts the economies of the debtor economies in a wide and sinister variety of ways. The situation holds for both HIPC and non-HIPC Third World economies. But whereas for the HIPC countries the exterior of the framework may still seem to hold some dim hope in the distant horizon for those borrower economies operating outside the HIPC agenda it no longer hides deepening disquiet among those that have yet to benefit from a one-fits-all approach to debt reduction mechanisms that continue to be foisted on them by the creditor institutions and their partners. In the .
