Published on :
There is an urgent need to relieve the debt burden of 54 poor countries. This is what the UNDP, the United Nations Development Program, is asking for in a report published on Tuesday, October 11, while the fall general meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are being held in Washington this week. .
The three most over-indebted states today are Argentina, Ukraine and Venezuela. But other countries are strangled by debt, such as Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Tunisia, Chad and Zambia. Despite repeated calls for action, we can say that almost nothing has been done so far “, denounces Achim Steiner, the head of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
According to this report, 46 of the 54 states selected by the UNDP had a total public debt of 782 billion dollars in 2020. And the situation is deteriorating quickly: 19 countries on the list – deemed too risky – are de facto excluded from the market. These are ten countries more than at the beginning of the year.
China plays a very active role. A third of the debt of the African continent is indeed owed to Beijing.
First reason that explains this debt crisis: the Covid-19. The pandemic has prompted many countries to borrow more in order to support their economy. Added to this was the rise in inflation and the rise in interest rates. Another reason and not the least: the debt repayment suspension mechanism, put in place during the pandemic, has ended.
In the process, the G20 tackled the restructuring of the debt. But the device is slow to set up. Only Chad, Ethiopia and Zambia have asked the G20 to benefit from a rescheduling of their debt. Without it having succeeded yet.
► Read also: Europe, Africa: who benefits from sovereign debt?