Developing countries' debt

The debt of developing countries refers to the external debt incurred by governments of developing countries, generally in quantities beyond the governments' ability to repay. "Unpayable debt" is external debt with interest that exceeds what the country's politicians think they can collect from taxpayers, based on the nation's gross domestic product, thus preventing it from ever being repaid. The debt can result from many causes.

Some of the high levels of debt were amassed following the 1973 oil crisis. Increases in oil prices forced many poorer nations' governments to borrow heavily to purchase politically essential supplies. At the same time, OPEC funds deposited and "recycled" through western banks provided a ready source of funds for loans. While a portion of borrowed funds went towards infrastructure and economic development financed by central governments, a portion was lost to corruption and about one-fifth was spent on arms.

There is much debate about whether the richer countries should be asked for money which has to be repaid. The Jubilee Debt Campaign gives six reasons why the third world debts should be cancelled. Firstly, several governments want to spend more money on poverty reduction but they lose that money in paying off their debts. Economist Jeff Rubin agrees with this stance on the basis that the money could have been used for basic human needs and says it is Odious Debt. Secondly, the lenders knew that they gave to dictators or oppressive regimes and thus, they are responsible for their actions, not the people living in the countries of those regimes. For example, South Africa has been paying off $22 billion which was lent to stimulate the apartheid regime.They have yet to recover from this, their external debt has increased to $136.6 billion while the amount of people in the housing backlog has increased to 2.1 million from 1994's 1.5 million. Also, many lenders knew that a great proportion of the money would sometime be stolen through corruption. Next, the developing projects that some loans would support were often unwisely led and failed because of the lender's incompetence. Also, many of the debts were signed with unfair terms, several of the loan takers have to pay the debts in foreign currency such as dollars, which make them vulnerable to world market changes. The unfair terms can make a loan extremely expensive, many of the loan takers have already paid the sum they loaned several times, but the debt grows faster than they can repay it. Finally, many of the loans were contracted illegally, not following proper processes.

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