Subjects Archives: Third World Debt

Jayati Ghosh warns against historically disastrous approaches to the sovereign-debt crisis hitting low- and middle-income countries.

As rich countries raise interest rates in double-edged efforts to address inflation, developing countries are struggling to cope with slowdowns, inflation, higher interest rates and other costs, plus growing debt distress.

Developed countries use 3.5% of their income to pay interest on their debt, while developing ones must use 14%, which complicates their situation.

Sri Lanka owes 81% of its external debt to US and European financial institutions and Western allies Japan and India. China owns just 10%. But Washington blames imaginary “Chinese debt traps” for the nation’s crisis, as it considers a 17th IMF structural adjustment program.

SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR: “The outlook for LDCs is grim”. The latest United Nations (UN) assessment of prospects for the least developed countries (LDCs) notes recent setbacks without finding any silver lining on the horizon.

On 5 October, the United Nations Human Rights Council passed a historic, non-legally binding resolution that ‘recognises the right to a safe, clean, healthy, and sustainable environment as a human right that is important for the enjoyment of human rights’.

The pandemic is pushing back the world’s poorest countries with the least means to finance economic recovery and contagion containment efforts. Without international solidarity, economic gaps will grow again as COVID-19 threatens humanity for years to come.

In honor of Fidel Castro’s birthday, Vijay Prashad writes about his legacy for the peoples of the Third World and his clarity in raising the primary crises facing humanity.

SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR. With the pandemic setting back past, modest and uneven progress, huge disparities in containing COVID-19 and financing government efforts are widening the North-South gap and other inequalities once again.

We deepen our analysis by focusing on various regions. After Latin America and the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa, we continue with the Middle-East and North Africa (MENA).

In Sub-Saharan Africa, where health spending and human development levels are in a dramatic state, there is a stronger case than ever for unilateral suspensions of debt payments based on arguments recognized in international law; such as state of necessity and fundamental change of circumstances.

Ecuador provides an example of a government which officially decided to investigate the process of indebtedness so as to identify illegitimate debt and suspend its repayment.

Ecuador provides an example of a government which officially decided to investigate the process of indebtedness so as to identify illegitimate debt and suspend its repayment.