Background
In 1975, the inter-sessional oversight body of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Trade and Development Board (TDB), endorsed a recommendation of an UNCTAD Ad hoc Group of Governmental Experts which were that UNCTAD “be invited to participate in the multilateral debt negotiations on the same basis as the representatives of other international organizations”.
The intention was that UNCTAD–formally in the capacity of observer–help the debtor countries present their case to the creditors. However, the resolution did not specify which negotiations. The fourth UNCTAD Conference, UNCTAD IV, in May 1976, requested the UNCTAD Secretary-General to convene a new “Ad hoc Intergovernmental Group of Experts on Debt and Development Problems”. This group met on regular basis from 1976 to 1983.
The Expert’s Group worked to produce a draft on sovereign debt renegotiation and retroactive terms of aid. In March 1978, the TDB in its Special Session IX at Ministerial level, adopted by consensus Resolution 165 S-IX, which said that sovereign debt problems should be addressed in “an appropriate multilateral framework consisting of interested parties” (paragraph 10-b). This was understood to be an implicit reference to the Paris Club as the only “appropriate multilateral framework”, and opened the door to UNCTAD participation to this forum based on TDB Resolution 132 (XV).
In the negotiation of Resolution 165 S IX, OECD countries made substantial concessions on debt relief (Part A of the Resolution), but resisted the formal introduction of a debt restructuring mechanism (Part B of the Resolution). This resolution also implicitly introduced the Paris Club as the “appropriate multilateral framework” for international consideration of debt problems of developing countries, as noted earlier. Part A of the resolution contained an agreement on “retroactive terms adjustment” on aid for a group of 30 least developed countries (i.e. repayment obligations on outstanding aid loans were changed to the easier terms that donors were now offering these countries). Some OECD countries that had decided to give aid exclusively as grants implemented this resolution by cancelling old debts, making this a precursor of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative.
The debate ended in September 1980 when TDB Resolution 222 (XXI) was adopted by consensus. Part B of the resolution contains the “Detailed Features for Future Operations Relating to the Debt Problems of Interested Developing Countries”. The Resolution was adopted without dissent, albeit with France abstaining to emphasise its strict neutrality, being host of the debt renegotiations, as this time the resolution made explicit reference to the Paris Club as the recognised multilateral forum for bilateral debt rescheduling. Part B of resolution 222 (XXI), the “Detailed Features for Future Operations Relating to the Debt Problems of Interested Developing Countries”, were in fact an agreed “code of conduct” for official debt rescheduling as only governments (UNCTAD constituency) were represented when it was adopted.
Read more about this topic: DMFAS
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)