Paris Club creditors said on Wednesday they were cancelling Sierra Leone's outstanding $218 million debt to them in the latest major international boost for the West African country's economic recovery efforts, according to Reuters. Five years after the end of a devastating 1991-2002 civil war, Sierra Leone's government is winning recognition from international partners for its efforts to reduce corruption, fight poverty and consolidate economic growth. "As a result of this agreement and additional bilateral assistance, Sierra Leone's debt to Paris Club creditors will be entirely cancelled," the Paris Club said in a statement. The club said its representatives had decided to cancel 91 percent of Sierra Leone's debt stock as it stood at the end of 2006. Some creditors also committed on a bilateral basis to granting additional debt relief of $22 million euros, it said. "(Paris Club representatives) welcomed Sierra Leone's determination to implement a comprehensive poverty reduction strategy and an ambitious economic programme providing the basis for sustainable economic growth," it said. In 2006, the economy grew by an estimated 7.5 percent and it is forecast to expand 6.5 percent in 2007. In December, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund said Sierra Leone qualified for a $1.6 billion debt write-off from its main creditors under global schemes to cancel the debts of the world's poorest countries. This write-off covered debts owed by the West African country to the World Bank, the IMF, African Development Bank, commercial creditors, and other governments. The relief followed completion by Sierra Leone's government of an economic programme overseen by the World Bank and the IMF. The West African country has benefited from the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) hammered out at a 2005 G8 summit at Gleneagles, Scotland. Like many African states, debt problems in the former British colony began in the 1970s and 1980s, as money was poured into ill-advised projects such as the construction of a new village in Sierra Leone's capital Freetown to house delegates for the 1980 Organisation of African Unity (OAU) Conference. Low growth, falling commodity prices and economic shocks meant that by 1992 the world's 33 most indebted low-income countries, Sierra Leone included, had seen debt grow to six times their annual exports. Since U.N. peacekeepers pulled out at the start of 2006, the war-scarred country has remained stable and a presidential election is scheduled for July. But most of the country's five million inhabitants remain poor and are waiting to see the benefits of peace. Corruption also remains a worry -- in the 2006 Transparency International index, Sierra Leone rated still poorly at 142 out of 163 countries.
