Ideas to Action:
Independent research for global prosperity
Following on from the “Financing Low-Income Countries: Towards Realistic Aspirations and Concrete Actions in a Post-COVID World" conference in October, Mark Plant and Sudhir Shetty outline some of the key themes discussed at the conference.
The latest G20 finance ministers meeting concluded with no major progress on debt relief for the world’s poorest countries, and a few setbacks. To date, no country eligible for the G20’s Debt Service Suspension Initiative has requested a moratorium on their private sector debt. We are at an impasse.
The World Bank has just released country-by-country data on the debt owed to individual creditors by the 73 countries eligible to participate in the G20-sponsored debt service suspension initiative.
Rather than providing relief on repayments from existing loans, IDA’s debt sustainability framework adjusts future financing from loans to grants for countries at high risk of debt distress. But what happens to IDA’s loans-to-grants model when a large number of IDA countries trigger the risk thresholds? Can IDA afford its commitment to debt sustainability?
In new research, we find that China’s role as a creditor has likely been a key driver of more burdensome lending terms in the form of higher interest rates, shorter maturities, and shorter grace periods for lower-income countries.
Debt relief for low-income countries is on the table of measures to consider for coronavirus response. The imperative right now is to get cash to LICs as quickly as possible. Suspending some debt service payments may be a good first step in freeing up some budget space for new spending. Beyond that, protracted debt-relief negotiations with multilateral and commercial creditors right now could be a distraction at best but could also actively undermine the ability of institutions like the World Bank to offer new financing for crisis response.
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