| Submit your comments on this article |
| International-UN-NGOs |
| FT.com: The aid that isn't |
| 2005-04-14 |
| When is "foreign aid" not foreign aid? When it is debt written off by governments that should never have lent it in the first place. .. According to the OECD's rules, the full face value of official commercial debt (typically export credits) written off by its member governments counts as foreign aid. The rich Paris Club of creditor nations hold some $40bn (£21.2bn) of Iraq's crippling $120bn official debt burden. Next year, the first $15bn to be written off will boost OECD members' aid total by more than 15 per cent. But as the OECD notes, this is misleading. A writedown of unpayable commercial bad debt to an oil producer is not comparable to aid to Africa to combat HIV-Aids or build ports. The official export credit agencies whose often questionable loans generate much of the bad commercial debt are mercantilist export promoters, not aid agencies. ... |
| Posted by:3dc |
| #3 |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-04-14 4:33:11 PM |
| #2 |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2005-04-14 1:49:35 PM |
| #1 |
| Posted by: eLarson 2005-04-14 12:00:18 PM |