ABSTRACT
Heavily indebted poor countries (HIPCs) suffer from a regulatory system in which they appear as petitioners before a board of their creditors and the International Financial Institutions (IFIs). Economists, a majority of the staff of the IFIs, naturally prefer to conduct economic discussion in economic terms. Thus, they are reluctant to give weight to the thought that if HIPCs are able to return to their pre-crsis levels of trade with more developed economies, the problem of unemployment worldwide will be reduced, a change which will also reduce stringencies felt in world trade in general. A further economic benefit which could result from generous cancellation would be the reopening of large areas of the globe to investment. Environmentalists should be close supporters of campaigns for debt cancellation. The forests are disappearing partly because, with the need for fresh sources of hard currency income in debtor countries, valuable tropical hardwoods are extracted beyond the limits which allow regeneration of the forests.
