Germany has agreed to cancel 19 million euros (USD25 million) in debt of Ivory Coast under an initiative launched by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to help generate domestic resources for health funding through debt swaps.
As part of the Debt2Health agreement, Ivory Coast will invest, through the Global Fund, half of the canceled debt in programs to fight HIV/AIDS, according to a Global Fund news release.
The Global Fund, Germany and Ivory Coast signed the debt swap agreement in Geneva, Switzerland, Sept. 16. This is Germany’s third debt swap agreement with the Global Fund. The country wrote off Indonesia’s 50 million euros debt in 2007 and Pakistan’s 40 million euros debt in 2008.
To date, some 163.6 million euros has been written off in debt swap agreements under the Debt2Health initiative.
