WASHINGTON, 09 Dec. - (ANA) - The gap between developing nations’ debt repayments and new financing from 2022 to 2024 reached a 50-year high, a World Bank report found. The $741 billion shortfall is a result of high borrowing costs, with interest payments hitting a record $415.4 billion last year. Though the total external debt stock of sub-Saharan African countries rose by 3.4% year-on-year on average in 2024, the pace of growth slowed, in part due to debt restructuring deals for Ghana and Zambia, and debt forgiveness granted to Somalia.

 

“Crushing debt service burdens” in recent years absorbed resources that could fund education, health care, and rural electrification, the World Bank warned. Governments must find solutions, “especially as aid flows and other sources of finance decline,” David McNair, executive director of the ONE Campaign, a nonprofit advocacy group focused on poverty alleviation, told Semafor.

 

While some borrowers, like Angola, have raised billions through debt sales this year, the World Bank warned policymakers should “make the most of the breathing room that exists today to put their fiscal houses in order instead of rushing back into external debt markets.”   -  (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/09 December 2025 - - -