An independent United Nations human rights expert yesterday called for the immediate cancellation of Haiti's external debt to allow it to recover from the devastating earthquake that struck the nation last month and move towards reconstruction. Haiti's current external debt amounts to about $890 million, around 70 per cent of which is owed to multilateral creditors, mainly the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank. "Haiti's remaining multilateral debt must be unconditionally cancelled as a matter of extreme urgency in order to afford the country the necessary fiscal space as it recovers from the recent devastating earthquake and moves towards reconstruction," Cephas Lumina, the U.N. Independent Expert on foreign debt and human rights, said in a statement. He also called for the provision of aid in the form of unconditional grants, "not new loans whatever the degree of concessionality," as well as a moratorium on debt service. While welcoming the recent announcement by the Paris Club (an informal group of 19 creditor countries) that its members would cancel the $214 million debt owed to them by Haiti, Lumina said more action was needed. "The decision is insufficient to assure the country's sustainable recovery effort, given that the bulk of its external debt is owed to multilateral creditors." "A new build-up of unsustainable debt must be avoided," Lumina said, noting that independent assessments indicate that it will take at least ten years for the country to recover from the quake.
