Finance ministers attending the recent Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank clearly heard the alarm that Indermit Gill and Kenan Karakülah sounded on African debt: The only topic for discussion at the Development Committee lunch was debt in low-income countries. The conversations in hallways and meetings reminded me of those 20 years ago, when the same countries were facing a debt crisis, which subsequently led to the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative and the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI).
The debt-relief programs of the early 2000s have generally been considered a (qualified) success. How then are we back to sounding alarm bells about African debt? At least four reason…
Read the full article at: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2018/04/25/low-income-country-debt-deja-vu-all-over-again/