The problem of Sub-Saharan Africa's debt - and the solutions

Author Affiliation

  • Dr. Ishrat Husain is Chief Economist Africa Region, World Bank, Washington D.C.

Faculty / School

Faculty of Business Administration (FBA)

Was this content written or created while at IBA?

No

Document Type

Article

Source Publication

African Development Review

Keywords

Debt, Sub-Saharan Africa, African economy

Disciplines

Economic Policy | Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration

Abstract

The countries of Sub-Saharan Africa are the most indebted, relative to the size of their economies, of all developing countries. Yet, the debt situation of Sub-Saharan African countries is not monolithic. Many are severely indebted, most often to official bilateral creditors. A few of Africa's severely indebted countries, such as Nigeria, are predominately indebted to commercial banks. Still others, including Botswana and Swaziland, are free of debt problems. This paper attemps to describe the debt dilemma of Sub Saharan Africa, taking into account the diversity of circumstances, to il lustrate the need for a variety of measures to address these difficulties, gd to assess the impact of the official response to date. The paper is organized as follows. Section II describes the existing debt and debt service situation of Sub-Saharan African countries. It attempts to answer the following questions : Who are Sub-Saharan Africa's external creditors ? How large is the debt burden ? Is there a debt overhang ? Section Il assesses Sub-Saharan Africa's need for debt relief in the context of exter nal financing needs. Section IV reviews the impact of the official response to the debt crisis on the external financial situation of African countries, and highlights possible measures that could strengthen the debt strategy. Section V summarizes the paper's finding.

Citation/Publisher Attribution

Husain, I., & Underwood, J. (1991). The Problem of Sub-Saharan Africa's Debt-and the Solutions. Mrican External Finance in the 1990s", edited by Husain, I. and Underwood, J., World Bank, Washington DC.

Publication Status

Published

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