With the very high expectations of meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, one of the creditor-designed debt relief initiatives, The Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative, launched in 1996 by the IMF and World Bank, has failed to achieve the promised objective of a “robust exit from the burden of unsustainable debts” for developing countries. As a potential source of development finance, the debt relief through HIPC is not sufficient to guarantee poverty reduction in these countries let alone meet some of the goals of the MDGs. An analysis of key debt indicators shows that external debt and debt-servicing problems and poverty have become most severe and persistent in the heavily indebted poor countries, the so-called HIPCs, says Afrodad, a research, lobby and advocacy organisation, in a recent report.