A/HRC/20/23 addition, excessive debt service burdens and harmful conditions linked to loans and debt relief often limit investment in and undermine the provision of accessible public services. 4. Apart from undermining obligations on economic, social and cultural rights, excessive debt burdens pose major obstacles for some countries in achieving the Millennium Development Goals.7 In 2011, the World Bank and the IMF, while reporting that HIPCs have increased their poverty reducing expenditure, noted that “HIPCs have made uneven, and in some cases, limited, progress towards achieving the Goals.”8 Only a quarter of completion-point HIPCs were on track to achieving Goal 1 (to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger), with progress toward Goal 5 (to improve maternal health) less certain.9 Further, only a few HIPCs were on track to meet Goal 8 (to build a global partnership for development). 10 5. The lack of progress towards the Goals has also been noted in a recent World Health Organization and UNICEF report covering 68 countries where more than 95 per cent of all maternal and child deaths occur. The report shows that 49 of the countries surveyed are off track for achieving Goals 4 (reduce child mortality) and 5 (improve maternal health). 11 It is notable that, while the report does not identify the external burden as the cause of this lack of progress,12 33 of the countries surveyed are HIPCs (including 27 post-completion HIPCs). 6. Where countries have had their foreign debt forgiven, they have been able to invest more in public services, such as health care, education, water and sanitation, and to abolish user fees for some of these services (previously introduced as part of austerity measures prescribed by international financial institutions) thereby enhancing the enjoyment of the rights to, inter alia, health, education, water and sanitation. 13 7. Efforts to address the issue of foreign debt from a human rights perspective within the United Nations have, regrettably, evoked a profoundly divisive debate in both the Commission on Human Rights and the Human Rights Council, with some States contending that these bodies were not those “appropriate” to address the issue and others calling for a holistic approach to human rights focusing on both the causes and context within which human rights violations occur. 14 While the Independent Expert does not wish to reignite the debate, he wishes to draw attention to a number of issues. First, rules other than human rights law and other international forums (which are presumably better 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 4 See A/HRC/15/WG.2/TF/2/Add.1, para. 54. International Development Association (IDA) and IMF, Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative and Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) – Status of Implementation and Proposals for the Future of the HIPC Initiative, 8 November 2011, para. 5. Ibid. Ibid. World Health Organization and United Nations Children’s Fund, Countdown to 2015 decade report: Taking stock of maternal, newborn and child survival (2010), p. 1. Ibid, p. 2. The report identifies user fees and insufficient levels of official development assistance as the main financial barriers.. According to the World Bank and IMF, debt relief under the Initiatives “has substantially lowered the debt burdens of HIPCs” and for the 36 post-decision point countries, poverty reducing spending increased by more than three percentage points of GDP, on average, between 2001 and 2010, while debt service payments declined by a somewhat smaller amount.” See IDA & IMF, HIPC Initiative and MDRI – Status of Implementation and Proposals for the Future of the HIPC Initiative, 8 November 2011, para. 5. See, e.g., Commission on Human Rights resolution 2004/18 of 16 April 2004, adopted by a vote of 29 in favour, 14 against and 10 abstentions; Human Rights Council decision 12/119, adopted on 12 October 2009 by a vote of 31 in favour, 13 against and 2 abstentions.