What does the Paris Club do for debtor countries, and more particularly for the poorest of them? Set up to ease the liquidity constraints of a country experiencing payment problems, by rescheduling its debt with the creditor governments, the Paris Club has frequently had to intervene since the beginning of the debt crisis. Since the Toronto Summit of June 1988 it has also been playing the role of aid provider for the poorest debtor countries.

After describing the functioning of the Paris Club in part one, the study goes on to evaluate the extent and role of the liquidity provided by the Club throughout the 1980s in part two. An initial finding is that the sums rescheduled through its action were very much greater than those lent over the same period by the creditor governments comprising the Club. Through focusing on selected African countries, the paper then shows that the main role of the liquidity created has been to avoid these countries' accumulating massive arrears and being cut ...