Following a discussion, in which the Chair of the Executive Committee was pleased to note significant progress toward finding common ground on the issue, the Executive Committee decided:
(a) To take note of the following principles presented by the representative of Canada and discussed by the Executive Committee:
• Recipient Governments should not be required to assume additional official debt as a result of agreeing to Multilateral Fund projects that utilized more innovative financing arrangements;
• If a country agreed to a project which included concessional lending or“innovative funding” arrangements, any funds which are eventually repaid to the project should be used, at the direction of the Executive Committee, to address further related needs within the same country;
• The parameters of innovative financing projects must be tailored to meet the needs of the project being considered and the capacity of the recipient country;
• The operation of concessional loans, or other innovative financing mechanisms, required an appropriate provision for administrative costs;
(b) To invite the members of the Executive Committee to submit to the Secretariat comments on these four principles or further such principles required, to be incorporated into a broad framework document to be considered at the Twenty ninth Meeting of the Executive Committee;
(c) To discuss the issue and principles at the Twenty-ninth Meeting, both as an item on the agenda and in a large-scale informal meeting.