UNCTAD’s Report of the Global Economy—A World of Debt indicated that, by 2024, global public debt was $102 trillion, and developing nations had $31 trillion, nearly one-third of that total, taking on the highest yearly interest of $921 billion ever. The debt growth is stressing budgets, limiting essential public services; progress towards a sustainable future is under threat. Debt can be a vehicle for infrastructure and improvement of lives; crowding out debt will certainly reduce growth and development. The UN has warned that without urgent cash flow reforms and updates, the debt burden will continue to be too high, and resources will continue to leak away from the most pressing priorities. The UN has asked for better and more sustainable financing options that developed foundations offer and more affordable options for vulnerable economies to invest in their own futures without facing escalating fiscal harm. The issue will remain a primary focus for the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development. However, the Financial Times early in 2024 suggested that this debt and development crisis was growing to even more dire levels in low- and lower-middle-income countries (LLMICs), whereby governments were taking scarce public money from the delivery of essential services (health, education, infrastructure, and climate adaptation) to honor existing debt payments. UNCTAD statistics reveal that 54 countries reserve more than 10% of tax revenue for interest payments, with the average interest burden nearly doubling since the financial crisis of 2011.
Debt raised during a period of low interest rates after the 2008 financial crisis is being refinanced and now will be subject to much higher debt service payments at a time of slowing global economic growth, putting additional strain on fiscal capacity. Capital flows to developing economies remain pro-cyclical in nature, deepening downturns, and developing economies experienced a net outflow of $30 billion from the private sector alone in 2023. The net transfers from the IMF, which rose during the pandemic, have turned negative, and many multilateral development bank funds frequently leverage investment toward private debt service costs rather than for developmental purposes. The article advocates for the complete reform of the global financial architecture, echoing the call for a jubilee year by Pope Francis, and for debt justice, warning that without structural change vulnerable nations may find themselves in a lost decade or worse. Countries like those in Asia and Oceania have 24 percent of public debt, whereas 5 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean and Africa has 2 percent. This illustrates inequality in the worldwide distribution of public debt by the UNCTAD’s report. Public debt burden will be different depending on the financing terms and the access to resolution offers from creditors. In 2023, developing countries transferred $487 billion to foreign lenders, with half of them spending, at minimum, 6.5% of export earnings on external public debt repayments. Alarmingly, they paid $25 billion more to creditors than they received in new loans, showing that there was yet again a net outflow of debt payments. The situation was made that much worse by high interest rates, weak global growth, and economic uncertainty, which constrained the fiscal space further. By 2024, engaging in one of the most underreported humanitarian issues, interest repayments by developing countries were $921 billion, an increase of 10% over 2023. A record 61 developing economies devoted at least 10% of government revenues to interest, obligating them to cut spending in sectors of essential priority to the welfare of their countries, such as healthcare, education, and climate funding. The human toll is massive.
A radical debt accountability from developing countries and their payers to help reduce financial crises. 3.4 billion people now live in countries where interest payments on external loans are higher than the level of public spending on health or education. These statistics highlight that systemic imbalance in the global financial system and an increase in the cost of borrowing have created a situation for the poorest economies where they should either invest in very important development or serve a higher level of loan; this phenomenon has eliminated inequality and has created a continuous increase. On June 20, it called on countries to expand the coverage of their debt disclosures and detail the amount of any off-budget borrowing planned, as many countries are using new and complex methods of off-budget borrowing while their domestic finances are impacted by persistent instability in global markets. Axel van Trostenburg, senior managing director, said that the relevant decision-makers have access to timely and credible information about their debt to break the cycle of hidden liabilities followed by worsening borrowing terms. The Bank calls for legal and regulatory changes that would require the new loan contracts to be completely transparent, country-by-country, loan-by-loan data more detailed than existing data, regular audits, and public access to the loan restructuring terms of their debt. The creditors should also proactively provide borrower loan and guarantee data. It is also recognized that there need to be more robust tools available to international financial institutions to be able to assess misreporting of debt levels.
While over three-quarters of low-income countries now report some debt data, up from less than three-fifths in 2020, only one-quarter disclose loan-level detail. Transparency is also compound impaired by the growing complexity of arrangements such as central bank currency swaps and collateralized transactions, which are becoming harder to monitor. Recent examples demonstrate the risks: Senegal has undertaken private debt placements while attempting to correct past debt misreporting with the IMF; Cameroon and Gabon have engaged in "off-screen" deals; Angola was forced to make a $200 million margin call when its bond prices plummeted; and Nigeria disclosed in 2023 that billions of dollars in its reserves were tied to opaque financial contracts entered into by previous political leaders. Separately, an analysis by Debt Justice UK (August 2025) presents that between 2020 and 2025, 39% of the payments of developing countries' external debt went to private lenders (e.g., bondholders, commodity traders), and only 13% went to China; the rest was paid to multilateral and government creditors. The borrowing costs from private-sector lenders are substantially higher, adding pressure to economies that are already having difficulties recovering from the pandemic, have lower levels of concessional financing available to them, and urgently need to make large investments in climate and infrastructure. The report claims that the economic strain from over-reliance on expensive private debt sapping national resources, while also amplifying debt burdens, is meaningfully restricting available public expenditure on services that are vital. It argues for more equitable debt relief methods, cognizant of the unequal nature of high interest costs, as well as greater transparency measures, to give at-risk nations fiscal space to reach equilibrium, while prioritizing sustainable development. The information from the World Bank and Debt Justice UK, together, shows a clear need for systemic reform of sovereign lending and reporting. Debt burdens are increasing, investment declining, and aid diminishing. These are becoming fiscal threats to global financing for development and taking us further away from any hope of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. The 4th International Conference on Financing for Development provides a rare once-per-decade opportunity to mobilize financing at scale and to reform global financing systems that take the interests of people and the planet into account. The United Nations Trade and Development has laid out four major actions leading up to the summit. First, we need to make international economic governance more inclusive so that developing countries can have a real say in global financial rules. Second, we must find ways to improve crisis liquidity access, which can be achieved by broadening the use of the Special Drawing Right, temporarily suspending IMF surcharges, improving emergency financing possibilities, and improving South-South cooperation. Third, the global debt architecture must be reformed, and a fair and efficient debt architecture that improves on the limitations of the current G20 Common Framework must be agreed upon. Finally, affordable finance and technical assistance must be scaled up with the intention of fulfilling commitments and pledges for aid and climate finance, reforming multilateral development banks, and promoting better debt management in vulnerable economies.