has meant, at best, stagnation in the domestic economy, and in many cases falling" standards of living which have impacted ioost severely on the middle and lower income groups in each society. JSM/edd A/S-18/PV. 2 27 (Mr. Coore, Jamaica) There are, however, some promising signals. It has-now been explicitly recognized in the Brady Plan that direct and positive steps have to be taken to reduce the totality of the debt itself even if this involves some cost to the lending institutions and some provision of incremental resources by creditor countries. Secondly, the transformation of bilateral official debt into grants has been put in place for the benefit of some of the poorest countries on the African continent. Recently, the Government of Canada has extended this by writing off $182 million of bilateral debt owed by a number of Caribbean countries, including my own. It is the view of my Government that it is the responsibility of this special session to obtain an international commitment to deal with the debt problem in such a manner as to enable the debtor countries to recapture a realistic prospect of future economic growth and social development. Identifying the necessary technical solutions is in many ways the easiest part of the problem. What is lacking is the will and the commitment to implement the many existi~ proposals by the creditor countries and the unity of purpose among the developing debtor countries to insist on this comprehensive approach. 4 The second issue to which I draw attention is the need to review the role P currently being played by the multilateral financial institutions in the development process, particularly those which are part of the United Nations family -namely, the International-Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Because of the drying up of commercial credit to developinq countries since 1982, these 
**Analysis**
The text discusses the debt crisis and its impact on the domestic economy and standards of living, as well as the need for international cooperation to address the issue. It also touches on the role of multilateral financial institutions in the development process. This suggests that the text is primarily focused on economic issues, particularly international economic development and finance.

**Category**
Economic development, International trade