A/HRC/23/37 relief under the current schemes. In 2011, Jamaica, which remains one of the most highly indebted countries in the world, had a total external debt of $14.4 billion (or 330 per cent of exports) and its interest payments as a percentage of GDP (approximately 10 per cent) were higher than for any other country.51 Between 2008 and 2012, debt servicing took up close to 50 per cent of total budgeted expenditures while spending on education and health combined was only been around 20 per cent.52 52. Second, the initiatives’ overwhelming focus on imprudent debt management on the part of borrowers and do not appear to have addressed the underlying causes of the debt crisis. Thus, their impact may be limited. V. International debt relief: what next? 53. The HIPC Initiative was not intended to be a permanent mechanism to reduce the external debts of low income countries. It was therefore closed to new entrants in 2006 when the sunset clause53 took effect and the list of potentially eligible HIPCs was ringfenced.54 According to the World Bank and IMF, the HIPC Initiative has largely achieved its objectives.55 The Initiative is also winding down but its future remains unclear. The Executive Boards of the World Bank and IMF have “expressed little support for making the HIPC Initiative a permanent facility or for closing it down.” In the view of the World Bank and IMF staff, the former option would neither be “consistent with the original intent of the Initiative nor justified by the current debt sustainability outlook in LICs” and “it would also be beset with moral hazard.” 56 Thus, they have proposed adding new income and eligibility criteria (as at end-2010) and further “ring-fencing” potentially eligible countries as this “would eliminate considerable moral hazard and underscore the extent to which the HIPC Initiative has been successfully implemented”.57 54. The winding down of the HIPC Initiative should not signal the end of international efforts to comprehensively address the debt problems of impoverished developing countries. Rather, it should be seen as an opportunity to assess the successes and failures of the existing debt relief schemes and, based on such assessment, to undertake a fundamental restructuring of the global economy. 55. The Independent Expert further considers that debt relief alone is insufficient to put beneficiary countries on a path to sustainable development. He therefore supports the calls made by, inter alia, Jubilee Debt Campaign for fundamental reform of the global economy to ensure more responsible, sustainable and fair lending whilst also reducing the dependence of developing countries on international capital. Such radical reforms are necessary in view of the fact that the World Bank and IMF, which play a central role in the implementation of existing debt relief mechanisms, have themselves often been central to the problem of debt, increased dependency of developing countries on commodity exports 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 16 See Jake Johnson and Juan A. Montecino, Update on the Jamaican Economy (Washington D.C., Center for Economic and Policy Research, May 2012), p. 10; see also World Bank, International Debt Statistics 2013 (see footnote 50), p. 22. Johnson and Montecino, Update on the Jamaican Economy (see footnote 51), p. 11. The deadline by which countries had to establish a sufficient track record to join the initiative. 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, p. 24. Ibid., p. 7. Ibid., p. 27. Ibid., p. 29.