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The Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Debt Initiative was designed to relieve the high external debt of some of the world's poorest nations. The Initiative was put in place by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1996 and enhanced in 1999. The HIPC Debt Initiative addresses a key obstacle to economic growth and poverty reduction, but it also contains multiple and overly-ambitious objectives. This work is an independent evaluation which assesses the progress and prospects of the HIPC Debt Initiative achieving its objectives.

This report provides an update on the status of implementation of the HIPC Initiative and the MDRI over the past year. Given that most HIPCs have reached the completion point, in November 2011, the IMF and IDA Boards2 endorsed staff’s proposal to further streamline reporting of progress under the HIPC Initiative and MDRI. It was agreed that the annual HIPC Initiative/MDRI status of implementation report will be discontinued, while the core information—on debt service and poverty reducing expenditure, the cost of debt relief, creditor participation rates, and litigation against HIPCs—should continue to be made available and updated regularly on the IMF and World Bank websites.