It is now routine for big economic summits - this time the International Monetary Fund-World Bank annual meetings in Prague - to pass with no progress announced on the heavily indebted poor countries' (HIPC) debt relief initiative.

This time, debt campaigners have claimed only the minor success of the IMF agreeing to re-examine the case of Zambia, one of the countries that is expected to qualify soon but has large debt repayments to the IMF coming due.

As the process refuses to respond to campaigners' complaints, one of the more notable developments has been the distinct toning-down of rhetoric from the financial institutions' influential shareholder countries.

At the annual meetings last autumn Gordon Brown, the UK finance minister who has been closely associated with the debt relief campaign, announced - perhaps unwisely - that relief for Uganda, the first country to qualify, would take place "within weeks".

He then flew back to the UK to tell a cheering audience at the Labour party conference that $100bn of outstanding debt would be written off over the next year.

In reality, it took more than six months for Uganda to qualify for full relief - and even if the current target of 20 countries qualifying for initial relief by the end of the year is met, the total debt written off will fall well short of the $100bn figure.

Campaigners note that this is one of the first summits for some time when the UK Treasury has not launched a new attention-grabbing initiative designed at least to create the appearance that the process is accelerating. The only official proposal has been a Canadian suggestion for a debt payment moratorium while countries qualify for relief.

This was swiftly dismissed by most conference participants as a publicity stunt, particularly by those who remember the Canadian finance ministry digging in its heels at last year's meeting over contributions to the trust fund used to write down the World Bank and IMF's share of the debt.

Meanwhile, although the World Bank and IMF remain committed to the 20-country target, they display irritation with critics such as Jubilee 2000, the charity that has led the campaign, which want to re-open fundamental questions such as the amount of relief on offer.

James Wolfensohn, the bank's president, said this week: "My philosophy is - let's get it started. We can't get everything done in the first five minutes."

Campaigners say that the main hope in changing their minds will be pressure from recipient countries.

Uganda's finance minister last week declared himself disappointed with the slowness, complexity and lack of generosity of the process.

Uganda is widely regarded as the shining star among developing countries. Other countries may find the process even slower and more tortuous - and campaigners hope this could spark the sort of complaints that may cause the entire initiative to be rethought.