Debt Dangers In Africa: How Defaults Hurt People, And Why Forgiveness Isn’t The Answer.

For most countries experiencing new highs in debt servicing costs, it is not so much a spike, but rather a gradual increase over several years. As Figure 1 which uses data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) shows, the Gross Debt of General Government (which includes central, provincial/state, and local government levels) steadily increased as percentage of GDP over the last 15 years (for brevity we will call this ratio the debt ratio). This period includes the global financial crisis as well as the COVID periods.