PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti:  When the Inter-American Development Bank meets this weekend (March 16-20) in Guatemala City, the agenda will include finalizing a proposal to cancel the debts of five countries: Bolivia, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guyana, and Haiti.

All but Haiti are poised to receive immediate cancellation of their debts. However, Haiti may be asked to wait three years or more to receive cancellation because the country has yet to complete the Heavily Indebted Poor Country Initiative (HIPC) of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

“Haiti currently pays $56 million a year to service odious debts. A large portion is paid to the IDB – the creditor that makes the largest claim against Haiti. If Haiti has to wait until the end of fiscal year 2010 for cancellation, that is another $90-120 million just to the IDB – money that would be far better spent providing health and education services for the people of Haiti,” said Tom Ricker, co-director of the Quixote Center’s Haiti Reborn program.

“Haiti only has 25 doctors per 100,000 people, and the public sector is currently spending $10 per person on health services. With this level of support between now and 2010 another 100,000 children in Haiti will die before reaching 11 months of age, and another 6,000 women will die during childbirth. Canceling Haiti’s debt now could help prevent many of these tragedies,” said Nicole Lee, director of the Transafrica Forum.

“Half of Haiti’s debt – nearly 60 percent of the IDB debt – is ‘odious debt’, or loans made to the Duvalier family or other dictatorships. The IFIs knew this ‘aid’ was buying fur coats, financing death squads and propping up repressive regimes, but they kept it flowing. The IDB has an opportunity to make up for this unconscionable policy, and to support Haiti’s democratic government, by cancelling this odious debt,” said Brian Concannon Jr., director of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti.

In November of 2006 the IDB Board of Governors agreed to create a process for canceling the debts of five eligible impoverished countries. After a follow up meeting in Amsterdam in January, it was announced that $3.5 billion in debts would be cancelled. However, little has been said about the process, and what conditions if any would be attached to countries for receiving the cancellation.

“It is egregious that Haiti must comply with harmful economic reforms to obtain debt cancellation from the IDB. This is why senior Members of the US Congress introduced a resolution this week to immediately and completely cancel Haiti’s debt. When thousands of lives are literally at stake I don’t see how the IDB Board of Governors can do anything other than heed Congress’s call,” added Tom Ricker.