A/RES/57/240 Welcoming the progress made on the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative designed to provide deeper, broader and faster relief, while recognizing that significant challenges remain to ensure that countries achieve a lasting exit from unsustainable debt, Welcoming also the actions taken by creditor countries within the framework of the Paris Club and by some creditor countries through the cancellation of bilateral debts, and urging all creditor countries to participate in efforts to remedy the external debt and debt-servicing problems of developing countries, 1. Reaffirms the determination, as expressed in the United Nations Millennium Declaration,2 to deal comprehensively and effectively with the debt problems of low- and middle-income developing countries, through various national and international measures designed to make their debt sustainable in the long term; 2. Recognizes that creditors and debtors must share the responsibility for preventing and resolving unsustainable debt situations and that debt relief can play a key role in liberating resources that should be directed towards activities consistent with attaining sustainable growth and development, including poverty reduction and the achievement of the development goals set out in the Millennium Declaration, and in this regard urges countries to direct those resources freed through debt relief, in particular through debt cancellation and reduction, towards these objectives; 3. Stresses that sustainable debt financing is an important element for mobilizing resources for public and private investment, and that national comprehensive strategies to monitor and manage the external liabilities embedded in the domestic preconditions for debt sustainability, including sound macroeconomic policies and public resource management, are a key element in reducing national vulnerabilities; 4. Recalls the call on industrialized countries, as expressed in the Millennium Declaration, to implement the enhanced programme of debt relief for the heavily indebted poor countries without further delay and to agree to cancel all official bilateral debts of those countries in return for their making demonstrable commitments to poverty reduction, including through poverty reduction strategy papers, where appropriate, and in this regard welcomes the decision of those countries that have already done so, emphasizing that debt relief complementary to the framework be treated as additional; 5. Calls upon the heavily indebted poor countries to take, as soon as possible, the policy measures necessary to become eligible for the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative and to reach the decision point; 6. Stresses the need to pursue, where appropriate, debt relief measures vigorously and expeditiously, by all creditors, including within the Paris and London Clubs and other relevant forums, so as to contribute to debt sustainability and facilitate sustainable development; 7. Welcomes initiatives that have been undertaken to reduce outstanding indebtedness; 8. Calls upon the international community, including the United Nations system, and invites the Bretton Woods institutions as well as the private sector, to take appropriate measures and actions for the implementation of the commitments, agreements and decisions of the major United Nations conferences and summits, in particular those relating to the question of the external debt problem of developing countries, and in this regard stresses the need: 2