The world’s richest nations agreed to cancel more than $2 billion of Somalia’s liabilities to help the war-torn nation restore debt sustainability.
The Paris Club creditors agreed to scrap $1.2 billion in debt, under the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative and are willing to grant additional relief on a voluntary and bilateral basis of $815 million, they said in a statement on their website
The relief represents 99% of the debt Somalia owed to Paris Club members as of January 2023.
The club also said it welcomes plans by the Horn of Africa nation to seek a treatment at least as favorable from its other official bilateral and external commercial creditors.
Somalia desperately needs the boost. It’s endured more than three decades of civil war, and is contending with an insurgency by al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda-linked Islamist group.
