UN says solutions exist to rapidly ease debt burden of poor nations

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Rebeca Grynspan, the UN's trade and development chief, stated that the heavy debt burden facing developing countries can be alleviated through readily available measures. In 2022, developing countries paid almost $50 billion more to their external creditors than they received in fresh disbursements. Grynspan emphasized that the small and medium-sized countries are the ones in distress, spending more on debt than on human development. Currently, there are 52 countries either in debt distress or on the brink of it. Grynspan plans to address the issue during the meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. She called for an internationally-agreed, stable mechanism for debt restructuring and highlighted the need for immediate relief for countries suffering from cascading crises during the COVID-19 pandemic. Grynspan suggested removing surcharges that 17 countries pay to the IMF, which would free up $2 billion. She also supported the idea of providing guarantees to lower interest rates in developing countries and accelerating the IMF's Resilience and Sustainability Trust. Other proposals included swapping debt for nature and automatically suspending interest payments for countries affected by natural disasters.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/un-says-solutions-exist-rapidly-054211182.html