a écrit le 28 avril 2006 à 14h57 Acces au point d'achevement PPTE OK apres tout.
World Bank to cancel $1.27 bln of Cameroon's debt
Fri Apr 28, 2006 8:28 AM GMT15
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The World Bank on Thursday agreed to cancel $1.27 billion of Cameroon's debt under a global program for the world's poorest countries, despite concerns about corruption raised by bank President Paul Wolfowitz.
The debt cancellation will be finalized once the International Monetary Fund signs off on it at a meeting scheduled for Friday.
In a statement read to the World Bank's board of directors, Wolfowitz, who is currently in Mexico, pointed to lingering concerns about the lack of transparency and corruption in Cameroon, referring to its low rankings on watchdog Transparency International's index of the world's most corrupt countries and reports by non-profit group Global Witness.
An official who attended the meeting said board directors decided that oil-rich Cameroon had made sufficient economic progress since it joined the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative in 2000 and had met World Bank requirements for debt relief.
"The board felt that Cameroon had worked hard in the six years since it entered HIPC and were against moving the goal post," said one official.
The official said some board members urged Wolfowitz to refer more to the bank's own ratings on governance, such as in the Country Policy and Institutional Assessments, which evaluates the quality of country policies including transparency, accountability and corruption in the public sector.
A recent report by an IMF economist on Cameroon's oil sector, where production is on the decline, concluded that while there have been substantial efforts to improve transparency, "continued and sustained action" is necessary to address the remaining gaps including the use of oil revenue.
Despite the country's oil wealth over the last 30 years, Cameroon has remained a poor country with weak social indicators.
Since becoming president of the World Bank in June last year, Wolfowitz has shown himself a bold opponent of corruption, halting lending to Chad when the government broke an agreement on oil profits, and suspending development projects to countries like India and Kenya.
Still, World Bank's member countries have worried that his ambitious anti-corruption agenda should not get in the way of the bank's main mission to reduce poverty and urged him to develop a formal framework for dealing with corrup
World Bank to cancel $1.27 bln of Cameroon's debt
Fri Apr 28, 2006 8:28 AM GMT15
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The World Bank on Thursday agreed to cancel $1.27 billion of Cameroon's debt under a global program for the world's poorest countries, despite concerns about corruption raised by bank President Paul Wolfowitz.
The debt cancellation will be finalized once the International Monetary Fund signs off on it at a meeting scheduled for Friday.
In a statement read to the World Bank's board of directors, Wolfowitz, who is currently in Mexico, pointed to lingering concerns about the lack of transparency and corruption in Cameroon, referring to its low rankings on watchdog Transparency International's index of the world's most corrupt countries and reports by non-profit group Global Witness.
An official who attended the meeting said board directors decided that oil-rich Cameroon had made sufficient economic progress since it joined the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative in 2000 and had met World Bank requirements for debt relief.
"The board felt that Cameroon had worked hard in the six years since it entered HIPC and were against moving the goal post," said one official.
The official said some board members urged Wolfowitz to refer more to the bank's own ratings on governance, such as in the Country Policy and Institutional Assessments, which evaluates the quality of country policies including transparency, accountability and corruption in the public sector.
A recent report by an IMF economist on Cameroon's oil sector, where production is on the decline, concluded that while there have been substantial efforts to improve transparency, "continued and sustained action" is necessary to address the remaining gaps including the use of oil revenue.
Despite the country's oil wealth over the last 30 years, Cameroon has remained a poor country with weak social indicators.
Since becoming president of the World Bank in June last year, Wolfowitz has shown himself a bold opponent of corruption, halting lending to Chad when the government broke an agreement on oil profits, and suspending development projects to countries like India and Kenya.
Still, World Bank's member countries have worried that his ambitious anti-corruption agenda should not get in the way of the bank's main mission to reduce poverty and urged him to develop a formal framework for dealing with corrup
