The ongoing global climate crisis has deepened the inequalities between countries, moving the world farther away from achieving the Sustainable Development Goal 10 of reduced inequality. The emission of greenhouse gases by high-income, Global North countries results in costly natural disasters around the world; this pushes lower-income, Global South countries into debt distress, with their scarce resources and debt repayments …
China, the biggest bilateral creditor to developing countries, needs to show it can operate within established international debt-relief processes for poor nations struggling to pay, the chief of the International Monetary Fund said. “China has been very slow to recognize that multilateral debt restructuring requires China to play by the rules that are already established,” Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said …
The covid-19 pandemic increased low- and middle-income countries’ debt levels to a 50-year high. For low-income countries, the ratio of multilateral debt to total external debt has been around 36.5% over the past decade, compared to 8% for middle-income countries, which depend heavily on costlier private-sector financing. Before covid-19, the main body providing debt relief to low- and middle-income countries …
