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

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The Office of the Special Evaluator of the International Cooperation has
assured the conformity of this evaluation report with the terms of references.
The final responsibility for the content of the report rests with the authors.
Evaluation team
Danny Cassimon
Lodewijk Berlage
François-Xavier de Mevius
Dennis Essers
Paul Reding
Robrecht Renard
Björn Van Campenhout
Karel Verbeke
October 2011
Legal deposit: 0218/2012/019
This document is available in pdf format on the website
www.diplomatie.belgium.be/en/policy/development_cooperation/evaluation
Coming to Terms with Reality
Table of Contents
List of abbreviations 5
List of tables and figures 7
Executive Summary 9
Inroduction 20
1 Methodological approach of evaluating debt reduction 22
2 International debt relief initiatives and their effects 29
2.1 External debt, debt burden and the issue of debt relief: introductory concepts 29
2.1.1 How to value debt, and debt relief 29
2.1.2 A taxonomy of sovereign debt claims 31
2.2 Description on international debt relief initiatives 31
2.2.1 A brief chronological description of the major debt relief initiatives 31
2.2.1.1 Debt relief before the HIPC Initiative 33
2.2.1.2 Debt relief under the HIPC Initiative 35
2.2.1.3 Debt relief beyond the HIPC Initiative 36
2.2.2 Characterising international debt relief initiatives from an aid
modality equivalence perspective 38
2.2.2.1 Characterising through conditionality: a chameleon called debt relief 38
2.2.2.2 Determining the correct cash flow equivalence between debt relief and aid 42
2.2.3 Types of debt relief operations 44
2.3 Evolution of international debt relief granted so far 46
2.3.1 Debtor-based statistics: Global Development Finance 46
2.3.2 Creditor-based statistics: OECD-DAC CRS database 50
2.3.3 Outstanding debt, debt relief and the generosity of donors 54
2.3.4 Zooming in on HIPCs 56
2.4 Aid, debt relief and ODA accounting 58
2.4.1 ODA accounting rules and the resulting debt relief component of ODA 58
2.4.2 Looking at ODA debt relief from an economic value of debt perspective 63
2.5 Assessing the international debt relief practice 67
2.5.1 International debt relief until 1999 67
2.5.2 Debt relief from 2000 onwards 68
2.5.2.1 Efficiency 69
2.5.2.2 Effectiveness 70
2.5.2.3 Relevance 72
2.5.3 Second generation debt swaps 73
3 Debt relief policy and practice by Belgium 76
3.1 Description of the institutional and legal framework in Belgium 77
3.1.1 The main Belgian official agencies involved 77
3.1.2 Institutional and legal framework governing Belgian debt
relief interventions 80
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