Tag: debt
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Africa’s Debt Crisis needs a Political Fix, contend experts
By Meera Srinivasan, on IDEAs, 20 April 2024 Ghana’s women vendors and hawkers are hard to miss. Attired in bright colours and bold prints, they walk swiftly on capital Accra’s streets, bearing baskets with various items on their heads, as infants wrapped in cloth carriers sit clasping their shoulders. As key contributors to the country’s…
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Austerity, Dispossession and Injustice: Facets of the debt crisis in Sri Lanka
By Ahilan Kadirgamar on IDEAS, 26 April 2024 Sri Lanka defaulted on its external debt for the first time in its postcolonial history in April 2022. The International Monetary Fund (IMF)-led process of recovery that followed has not only been disastrous in terms of the economic policy package proposed by the Government. The underlying analysis…
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Water Flowing Upwards: Net financial flows from developing countries
from C. P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh on Real-World Economics Review blog, 1 May 2024, originally published in the Business Line on April 29, 2024 Once again, low and middle income countries (LMICs) are at the brutal receiving end of the fickle trajectory of international capital flows. As Figure 1 indicates, net financial flows to such countries, which…
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Global South Stagnating under Heavier Debt Burden (Jomo Kwame Sundaram)
Much higher interest rates – due to Western central banks – are suffocating developing nations, especially the poorest, causing prolonged debt distress and economic stagnation. US Fed-induced stagnation After the greatest US Fed-led surge in international interest rates in more than four decades, developing countries spent $443.5 billion to service their external government and government-guaranteed debt in…
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A worldof debt: A growing burden to global prosperity
UN GLOBAL CRISIS RESPONSE GROUP, July 2023 Public debt can be vital for development. Governments use it to finance their expenditures, to protect and invest in their people, and to pave their way to a better future. However, it can also be a heavy burden, when public debt grows too much or too fast. This…
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The Growing Debt Burdens of Global South Countries: Standing in the Way of Climate and Development Goals
Nearly 80 low- and middle-income countries are considered by international institutions as being in or at risk of debt distress. Three-fourths of these countries have also been flagged by environmental experts as particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The combined burden of the climate crisis and increasing debt, perpetuated by an unfair international…
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Chronicles of Debt Crises Foretold
Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Originally published on Wiley Online Library, 5 Sept 2023. Also published on IDEAS Blog. / / The debt crises looming in developing countries are being exacerbated by changing debt composition. Declining net foreign exchange earnings have worsened their predicament. As concessional development finance declined, many governments turned to riskier…
