The Debt Management and Financial Analysis System (DMFAS) Programme is a technical assistance programme managed by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), in Geneva. The objectives of the DMFAS Programme are to assist countries to develop administrative, institutional and legal structures for effective debt management; to provide technical assistance to government offices in charge of debt management; to deploy and advance debt analysis and management systems; and to act as a focal point for discussion and exchange of experiences in debt management. The Programme's debt management software system is currently installed in over ninety government institutions, almost exclusively ministries of finance and/or central banks. Background In 1975, the inter-sessional oversight body of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Trade and Development Board (TDB), endorsed a recommendation of an UNCTAD Ad hoc Group of Governmental Experts which were that UNCTAD “be invited to participate in the multilateral debt negotiations on the same basis as the representatives of other international organizations”. The intention was that UNCTAD–formally in the capacity of an observer–help the debtor countries present their case to the creditors. However, the resolution did not specify which negotiations. The fourth UNCTAD Conference, UNCTAD IV, in May 1976, requested the UNCTAD Secretary-General to convene a new “Ad hoc Intergovernmental Group of Experts on Debt and Development Problems”. This group met on a regular basis from 1976 to 1983. The Expert's Group worked to produce a draft on sovereign debt renegotiation and retroactive terms of aid. In March 1978, the TDB in its Special Session IX at Ministerial level, adopted by consensus Resolution 165 S-IX, which said that sovereign debt problems should be addressed in “an appropriate multilateral framework consisting of interested parties” (paragraph 10-b). This was understood to be an implicit reference to the Paris Club as the only “appropriate multilateral framework”, and opened the door to UNCTAD participation to this forum based on TDB Resolution 132 (XV). In the negotiation of Resolution 165 (S-IX), OECD countries made substantial concessions on debt relief (Part A of the Resolution) but resisted the formal introduction of a debt restructuring mechanism (Part B of the Resolution). This resolution also implicitly introduced the Paris Club as the “appropriate multilateral framework” for international consideration of debt problems of developing countries, as noted earlier. Part A of the resolution contained an agreement on “retroactive terms adjustment” on aid for a group