Poorer countries looked for ways to lessen their debt and richer countries recognised that many debts might never be paid. In the mid-1980s, the Paris Club rescheduled many countries' debts. Programmes for debt relief followed. But debtor countries had to fulfil key conditions, called structural adjustments, to get debt relief.



They had to sell off state assets to private companies, open their markets to imported goods, reduce government economic intervention and devalue their currency. The lenders claimed that these programmes would create prosperity to offset debt. After several years of structural adjustment, the debts are still growing.

However, the recent debt moratorium (postponement of payment) on tsunami countries was unconditional. It breached the principle that debt relief requires economic or political reforms demanded by creditors. It prompted campaigners to demand unconditional relief for the victims of social and economic catastrophe elsewhere too.