Participants see progress in fighting poverty, strengthening growth in poorest countries

• Pages: 144-145

Page 144

Following are edited excerpts of the communiqué issued after the joint session of the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) and the Development Committee.

The members of the Development Committee and the IMFC met jointly on April 29 to review ongoing efforts by the World Bank and the IMF to strengthen growth and fight poverty.We renew our commitment to address these issues and to assist countries in their efforts to achieve the international development goals.

This special meeting symbolizes our full support for the strengthened cooperation between the Bank and the IMF, which is reflected as well by many other items on the separate agendas of the IMFC and the Development Committee. In this meeting, we focused our attention on progress in strengthening this partnership in fighting poverty and strengthening growth in the world's poorest countries.

Many of the issues we discussed apply with special force to the problems of Africa. Following the joint visit to the region by the heads of our two institutions last February, they reported on the strong commitment among African leaders to make changes that will allow the continent to attack the roots of poverty and to improve the lives of their people on a lasting basis.

The African leaders stressed the importance of tackling major problems that are addressed in our Committees' agendas: conflict and weak governance; building a strong human resource base, including education and the attack on HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases; and the need to position Africa to benefit from globalization.We recognize that strong action by African leaders to face their own responsibilities needs to be complemented by strong support from the international community to achieve the international development goals, and we are prepared to work to provide that support.

A great deal of progress has been made since the Prague Annual Meetings to implement the PRSP [poverty reduction strategy paper] approach and the enhanced HIPC [Heavily Indebted Poor Countries] Initiative.We are encouraged by the seriousness of purpose and ownership with which countries have engaged in the process and by the willingness of development partners to support the approach.While we are also encouraged by the prospect that many countries will complete their first full PRSP in 2001, we urge the Bank and the IMF, other multilateral institutions, and bilateral donors to help these countries fully develop, implement...