Its harder to withstand a disaster when your government spends more on paying down debt than on social services.
UN figures released last week add more detail to the contours of a global debt crisis that is drawing increasing attention from humanitarians. Meanwhile, rising debt is one of many issues on the agenda as Group of 20 (G20) finance ministers meet this week in India.
The governments of 25 countries spent at least a fifth of their revenue on servicing external debt, according to a July briefing published by the UN Development Programme. Low-income countries spend more than twice as much on interest payments as they do on social assistance, and more than 1.4 times more than on healthcare.
Some 46 countries from across the inco…
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