On Tuesday, the United States proposed a debt relief program to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in which the organization would cancel roughly $100 million in debt owed by Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, TIME reported.
On Tuesday, the United States proposed a debt relief program to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in which the organization would cancel roughly $100 million in debt owed by Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, TIME reported.
The US is proposing that the IMF take the money from its natural disaster debt relief fund. The three countries owe the IMF a total of $372 million. The IMF’s other 187 member countries have to approve the proposal, which U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew will announce at the Group of 20 meeting in Brisbane, Australia this week.
“The International Monetary Fund has already played a critical role as a first responder, providing economic support to countries hardest hit by Ebola,” Lew said in a statement to Reuters. “Today we are asking the IMF to expand that support by providing debt relief for Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea.”
Last Wednesday, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, announced that it would provide $450 million in commercial financing to support trade, investment and employment in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The World Bank predicts that a lack of intervention in the outbreak that has claimed more than 4,000 lives in the three countries could cause West Africa to lose up to 4% of annual growth and $25.2 billion of GDP by 2015.