Development campaigners will on Monday step up their pressure on the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to expand the high-profile international debt relief initiative for the poorest countries, describing the current programme as flawed and inadequate.

Jubilee 2000, the debt relief campaign, and Oxfam, the aid agency, publish reports on Monday arguing that the current programme leaves some recipient countries still crippled by heavy debt payments. The World Development Movement campaign is expected to make similar arguments in a report on Tuesday.

The reports will refocus attention on the heavily-indebted poor countries' (HIPC) debt relief initiative during the IMF/World Bank meetings in Prague over the next two weeks. Horst Kohler, the IMF's managing director, recently told campaigners "we should go a step further" with debt relief.

Jubilee 2000 says the IMF and World Bank could cancel all debt owed to them by the 41 HIPC countries without endangering their reserve positions or credit rating. The current programme envisages a reduction of approximately one-third in the debt owed to both institutions.

Ann Pettifor, Director of Jubilee 2000 and co-author of the report, said: "The G7 countries have all accepted that these debts are uncollectable, and pledged to write off 100 per cent of the debts they are owed by the poorest countries. As major shareholders, why don't they tell the bank and fund to do the same thing?"

A spokesman for the fund yesterday said: "We do not yet have the resources to fund the debt relief commitments already made, let alone take on new ones."

The trust fund set up to pay the IMF and World Bank's share of the initiative is currently facing a shortfall as the US's contribution, snarled up in budget negotiations in the US Senate, is yet to arrive. A World Bank spokesperson said a debt write-off on the scale called for by Jubilee 2000 would "severely compromise" its ability to lend to other countries.

Oxfam's report argues that the debt relief on offer is based on arbitrary conditions that leave some countries paying a heavy proportion of their government spending on debt repayments.

Forecasting debt service payments for 13 countries in the programme - including eight that have already passed through the initial qualification stage - Oxfam says all but three will continue to spend more on debt service than on health care and primary education after receiving relief.

Five countries, including Zambia, Cameroon and Malawi, will pay more than a quarter of their government spending on debt service payments.

Oxfam says the IMF and World Bank should set a new ceiling of 10 per cent of government spending on debt repayment.