BY SEAN HEALY
@box text intr = In order to qualify for what debt relief is on offer, poor countries must jump through many hoops.
Qualify as "IDA": In order to qualify for debt relief, a Third World country must first be deemed eligible for concessional loans from the International Development Association, one of the arms of the World Bank, which only loans to the poorest countries. The largest debtor countries, including Argentina, Turkey, South Korea and Mexico, therefore can't receive debt relief.
Qualify as "HIPC": Then an IDA-eligible country must be classified a "Heavily Indebted Poor Country". Only 41 poor countries have so far been classified as such, excluding deeply indebted and desperately poor countries such as Nigeria, Haiti and Bangladesh.
Qualify for entrance to the program: Once classified as HIPC, countries must apply and then be officially accepted into the debt relief program. While 41 countries are classified as HIPC, 15 can't currently qualify for relief as the World Bank and IMF consider their debts "sustainable" (e.g., Vietnam, Angola), or because they are "war-affected" and therefore deemed not capable of carrying out the necessary programs (e.g., Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of Congo).
Reach "decision point": In order to qualify for any relief of debt repayments, countries must successfully carry out a three-year structural adjustment program overseen by the World Bank and IMF. Once they have done so, they are said to have reached their "decision point"; 23 countries have so far reached this point.
Reach "completion point": In order to qualify for any actual cancellation of debt stock, countries must successfully carry out a second "poverty reduction" program (initially three years long, now "floating", or indeterminate, in duration). They are then said to have reached their "completion point"; only Uganda has so far done so.
Even then, as the World Bank and IMF have admitted, "HIPC debt relief alone does not ensure long-term debt sustainability".