Coming to Terms with Reality. Evaluation of the Belgian Debt Relief ...

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International debt relief initiatives and their effects
Table 2.6 Outstanding debt claims per DAC creditor in 1990 (in current mio US$)
Creditor/
Type of debt Concessional debt claims
Non-concessional
debt claims Total debt claims
Share of total Share of total Donor share
Australia 254 26.94% 689 73.06% 943 0.37%
Austria 524 9.25% 5,143 90.75% 5,667 2.24%
Belgium 760 23.43% 2,484 76.57% 3,244 1.28%
Canada 2,244 24.34% 6,976 75.66% 9,220 3.64%
Denmark 1,167 57.40% 866 42.60% 2,033 0.80%
Finland 238 48.87% 249 51.13% 487 0.19%
France 12,404 36.58% 21,509 63.42% 33,913 13.40%
Germany 21,776 48.90% 22,752 51.10% 44,528 17.60%
Ireland 0 0.00% 3 100.00% 3 0.00%
Italy 3,320 31.95% 7,070 68.05% 10,390 4.11%
Japan 50,758 74.01% 17,823 25.99% 68,581 27.10%
Netherlands 3,752 56.74% 2,861 43.26% 6613 2.61%
Norway 155 18.74% 672 81.26% 827 0.33%
Portugal 74 17.01% 361 82.99% 435 0.17%
Spain 939 16.01% 4,925 83.99% 5,864 2.32%
Sweden 521 27.31% 1,387 72.69% 1,908 0.75%
Switzerland 439 16.05% 2,297 83.95% 2,736 1.08%
United Kingdom 1,291 11.25% 10,183 88.75% 11,474 4.53%
United States 29,112 65.87% 15,086 34.13% 44,198 17.47%
Bilaterals, Total 129,728 32.14% 123,336 67.86% 253,064 100%
Source: Authors’ own calculation based on World Credit Tables (Nicolas, 1996)
2.3.3 Outstanding debt, debt relief and the generosity of donors
In the previous section we have, among other things, attempted to estimate the total gross
debt relief granted by each DAC donor individually. In order to be able to say something
about the generosity of these donors, we would also need to consider the amounts of
outstanding debt titles per creditor before such debt relief took place. However, data on
outstanding claims has generally been a well-kept secret of individual creditors. 34 One rare
source of information is the World Credit Tables 1996, a one-time publication by
EURODAD, a consortium of European NGOs that are involved in research and advocacy
work on debt-related issues (see Nicolas, 1996). From these credit tables we have been able
to derive the amounts of outstanding concessional and non-concessional debt claims per
34 It must be noted that, in recent years, the Paris Club has improved on its data transparency on outstanding
creditor claims. Its latest two annual reports (years 2008 and 2009) provide an overview of the
amounts due (per debtor country) to Paris Club creditor countries as a whole at that time. These figures
however only concern current outstanding claims and give no historical account; neither are statistics
disaggregated per individual Paris Club member.
Coming to Terms with Reality
Table 2.7 A Generosity Index for DAC creditors
Creditor Outstanding debt 1990 (1) 1990 PV gross debt relief (2) Generosity Index
in current mio US$ in mio US$, discount rate: 10% (2)/(1)
Australia 943 205.48 0.2179
Austria 5,667 1,016.61 0.1794
Belgium 3,244 847.96 0.2614
Canada 9,220 1,280.34 0.1389
Denmark 2,033 323.11 0.1589
Finland 487 147.31 0.3025
France 33,913 6,814.17 0.2009
Germany 44,528 6,560.76 0.1473
Ireland 3 0.00 0.0000
Italy 10,390 2,060.73 0.1983
Japan 68,581 4,316.48 0.0629
Netherlands 6,613 1,418.71 0.2145
Norway 827 151.12 0.1827
Portugal 435 337.62 0.7761
Spain 5,864 1,069.76 0.1824
Sweden 1,908 239.07 0.1253
Switzerland 2,736 198.49 0.0725
United Kingdom 11,474 3,040.56 0.2650
United States 44,198 8,129.91 0.1839
Bilaterals, Total 253,064 38,160.36 0.1508
Source: Authors’ own calculation based on CRS database and World Credit Tables (Nicolas, 1996)
DAC creditor (excluding Greece, Korea, Luxembourg and New Zealand) in 1990, just before
the Paris club launched its London terms. Table 2.6 indicates that in 1990 concessional debt
claims only accounted for one third of the outstanding debt claims of all bilateral creditors
considered. For Belgium specifically the share of concessional debt was even smaller
(23.4%). With respect to the whole of claims, we can see that Japan was by far the most
important creditor (27.10% of all bilateral claims), followed by Germany (17.6%), the United
States (17.5%) and France (13.4%). In 1990 Belgium held merely 1.28% of all debt claims
outstanding.
Combining the information on total outstanding debt claims of Table 2.6 with the data on
gross debt relief we presented in the previous section, enables us to get an impression of how
generous bilateral donors have been in providing (albeit largely nominal) debt relief. Table
2.7 presents an indicative (albeit very crude) measure of such generosity which allows for
comparison between donors. The Generosity Index is calculated as the ratio of the PV of
gross debt relief from 1990 onwards (until 2008) and total outstanding debt claims in 1990.
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