Debt relief is urgent.
We have to ask, however, why progress in resolving the debt problem is still so slow. It is the poor who pay the cost of indecision and delay. On May 9, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved the foreign aid spending bill for FY 2001. The Senate Banking Committee is tentatively scheduled to consider S2382, the foreign aid authorizing bill, the week of May 22. Such reforms could take significant time and would delay or prevent poor countries from receiving debt reduction.