A/HRC/23/37 United Nations General Assembly Distr.: General 11 June 2013 Original: English Human Rights Council Twenty-third session Agenda item 3 Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development Report of the Independent Expert on the effects of foreign debt and other related international financial obligations of States on the full enjoyment of all human rights, particularly economic, social and cultural rights, Cephas Lumina* An assessment of the human rights impact of international debt relief initiatives Summary For close to two decades, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have coordinated international efforts to address the debt crisis of low-income countries through two main mechanisms: the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative and the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI). The aim of these initiatives is to reduce the debt burdens of the beneficiary countries to levels deemed “sustainable” by the two institutions and to help fund poverty-reducing expenditures and progress towards the Millennium Development Goals. According to the World Bank and IMF, these debt relief efforts have “significantly reduced” the debt burdens of the participating low-income heavily indebted poor countries while enabling them to scale up “poverty-reducing” expenditures. To the extent that it can be shown that increased social spending in HIPC completion point countries is the result of debt relief, it can be argued that the initiatives have had a positive impact on poverty reduction. Nevertheless, it is difficult to establish a causal relationship between debt relief and increased poverty-reducing expenditure. Indeed, the empirical evidence on the social impacts of the two international debt relief schemes presents an inconclusive picture. Not intended to be a permanent mechanism to relieve the external debt burdens of the recipient countries, the HIPC Initiative is now winding down and the future of international debt relief efforts remains uncertain. In this context, the present report, which * Late submission. GE.13-14624