The World Bank and other multilateral lenders could fill the gap.

In the next five months, the country's obligations to multilateral lenders total nearly $5 billion, including a payment of $2.9 billion in September.

That's a job for multilateral lenders, like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, that are backed by the credit of the major economic powers.

Their only real leverage is the threat that the multilateral lenders and government agencies will cut off aid.

The EIB is already the world's biggest multilateral lender.

Much of the damage to the economy, however, cannot easily be undone through shuttle diplomacy or by sending promising signals to multilateral lenders.

America must take the lead on Latin debt, orchestrating concessions by banks and offering government capital through multilateral lenders.

A poor country in need of aid would directly petition multilateral lenders and friendly governments, as hurricane-ravaged Honduras is now doing.

In the end, foreign currency speculators pulled the plug, forcing the Thais to seek relief from official multilateral lenders like the I.M.F.

(This year alone the World Bank, the biggest of the multilateral lenders, will channel nearly $20 billion to about 80 countries.)