Skip to main content

Tanzania: Debts

Volume 461: debated on Wednesday 20 June 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what proportion of the debt relief allocated to Tanzania by (a) the World Bank and (b) the African Development Bank has (i) been received by Tanzania and (ii) remains to be delivered in the latest period for which figures are available. (143743)

Tanzania completed the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC) in 2001, receiving debt cancellation worth $861 million from the World Bank and $155 million from the African Development Bank. In 2006, Tanzania received a further $1,375 million of debt cancellation from the World Bank and $245 million from the African Development Bank under the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI). All figures are in 2005 Net Present Value (NPV) terms.

Tanzania’s debt cancellation under HIPC and MDRI is irrevocable. Tanzania will not be required to make any payments on any debts disbursed by the World Bank before the end of 2003 and by the African Development Bank before the end of 2004. In their 2006 Status of HIPC and MDRI Implementation Report, the World Bank and IMF reported that $595 million of the debt cancellation at the World Bank and $102 million at the African Development Bank was yet to be delivered. The World Bank has advised us that this will be corrected in the 2007 report, which will show that all HIPC and MDRI debt cancellation for Tanzania and the other countries that have completed the HIPC Initiative has been delivered.