Section
501
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Amends the International Financial Institutions Act with respect to the multilateral debt initiative for heavily indebted poor countries (Enhanced HIPC Initiative) presented in the Report of G-7 Finance Ministers on the Cologne Debt Initiative to the Cologne Economic Summit, Cologne, June 18-20, 1999.
Urges the Secretary of the Treasury to commence efforts immediately within the Paris Club of Official Creditors, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and other appropriate multilateral development institutions to modify the Enhanced HIPC Initiative so that the amount of debt stock reduction approved for a country eligible for debt relief under the Initiative shall be sufficient to reduce, for each of the first three years after enactment of this title or the Decision Point, whichever is later: (1) the net present value of the outstanding public and publicly guaranteed debt of the country to not more than 150 percent of the annual value of the country's exports for the year preceding the Decision Point; and (2) the annual payments due on such public and publicly guaranteed debt to not more than ten percent (or, in the case of a country suffering a public health crisis, not more than five percent) of the amount of the annual current revenues received by the country from internal resources, or a percentage of the country's gross national product (or another benchmark) that will yield a result substantially equivalent to that which would be achieved through application of subparagraph (1).
Defines Decision Point as the date on which the executive boards of the World Bank and the IMF review the debt sustainability analysis for a country and determine that it is eligible for debt relief under the Enhanced HIPC Initiative.
Defines country suffering a public health crisis as a country in which the HIV/AIDS infection rate, as reported in the most recent epidemiological data compiled by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, is at least five percent among women attending prenatal clinics or more than 20 percent among individuals in groups with high-risk behavior.
Requires an international financial institution, in financing the objectives of the Enhanced HIPC Initiative, to give priority to using its own resources.
States that debt cancellation under modification to the Enhanced HIPC Initiative under this title should not be conditioned on any agreement by an impoverished country to implement or comply with policies that deepen poverty or degrade the environment, including any policy that: (1) implements or extends user fees on primary education or primary health care, including prevention and treatment efforts for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and infant, child, and maternal well-being; (2) provides for increased cost recovery from poor people to finance basic public services such as education, health care, clean water, or sanitation; (3) reduces the country's minimum wage to a level of less than $2 per day or undermines workers' ability to exercise effectively their internationally recognized worker rights; or (4) promotes unsustainable extraction of resources, or results in reduced budget support for environmental programs.
Declares that a country shall not be eligible for debt cancellation under the modification to the Enhanced HIPC Initiative under this title if the country's government: (1) has an excessive level of military expenditures; (2) has repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism; (3) is failing to cooperate on international narcotics control matters; or (4) engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights (including its military or other security forces).
Authorizes a country otherwise eligible to receive debt cancellation under such modification to receive it only if the country has agreed to: (1) ensure that the financial benefits of debt cancellation are applied to programs to combat HIV/AIDS and poverty, in particular through concrete measures to improve basic services in health, education, nutrition, and other development priorities, and to redress environmental degradation; (2) ensure that the financial benefits of debt cancellation are in addition to the government's total spending on poverty reduction for the previous year, or the average total of such expenditures for the previous three years, whichever is greater; (3) implement transparent and participatory policymaking and budget procedures, good governance, and effective anticorruption measures; and (4) broaden public participation and popular understanding of the principles and goals of poverty reduction.