WASHINGTON – The IMF Executive Board extended a process to cancel debt payments for the world’s 28 poorest countries. The Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust (CCRT) provided debt relief for the last year and now will continue through October 15, 2021.

Eric LeCompte, the Executive Director of the religious development group Jubilee USA Network and an IMF expert, releases the following statement on the CCRT debt relief extension:

“This is good news for the world’s poorest countries.

“Cancelling debt, for these vulnerable countries, means resources can be spent on healthcare and social services.”

“While this is important debt relief in the short term, we now need to work on cancelling debts for the long term. Only long-term debt reduction can support developing countries to emerge from the pandemic with resilience.”

Read the IMF release on the CCRT extension here.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.