PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – A United Nations human rights expert on Thursday called for the immediate cancellation of this country’s external debt to allow it to recover from the catastrophic earthquake that struck last month.

“Haiti’s remaining multilateral debt must be unconditionally cancelled as a matter of extreme urgency in order to afford the country the necessary fiscal space as it recovers from the recent devastating earthquake and moves towards reconstruction,” the UN’s independent expert on foreign debt and human rights, Cephas Lumina said.

He also called for the provision of aid in the form of unconditional grants, “not new loans whatever the degree of concessionality,” as well as a moratorium on debt service.

Haiti’s current external debt amounts to about US$890 million, around 70 per cent of which is owed to multilateral creditors, mainly the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank. The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country is struggling in the aftermath of the deadly 12 Jan., quake, which is estimated to have affected one third of the nine million citizens of Haiti, already the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.

While welcoming the recent announcement by the Paris Club – an informal group of 19 creditor countries – that its members would cancel the US$214 million debt owed to them by Haiti, Lumina warned that more action was needed.  “The decision is insufficient to assure the country’s sustainable recovery effort, given that the bulk of its external debt is owed to multilateral creditors.”

Lumina also warned that the International Monetary Fund was ignoring its own advice by the recent approval of a "highly concessional" and "interest-free" loan of US$114 million to Haiti, repayment of which is due after a five-and-a-half year "grace period".