South-South sharing of policy experiences: Debt sustainability in developing countries

The UNCTAD project “South-South Integration and the SDGs: Enhancing Structural Transformation in Key Partner Countries of the Belt and Road Initiative” identifies key areas in which policy experience can be helpfully shared among developing countries. As part of this project, the UNCTAD Sustainable Development Finance Assessment (SDFA) Framework, as applied to publicly available data from beneficiary countries, provides an entry point for beneficiary countries to evaluate the policy tensions associated with debt sustainability.

Purpose and objectives of the meeting

This hybrid meeting will bring together policymakers and experts from developing countries to discuss and share their policy experiences in the area of debt sustainability; particularly from the perspective of the UNCTAD Sustainable Development Finance Assessment framework, which provides policymakers with an assessment of their external and public sector financial needs against the need to achieve or maintain external debt and public sector sustainability. This meeting is part of the UNCTAD project, “South–South integration and the Sustainable Development Goals: Enhancing structural transformation in key partner countries of the Belt and Road Initiative”, which identifies key areas in which policy experience can be helpfully shared among developing countries.

The key objectives and expected outcomes of the event are the following:

• To launch the reports “Application of the UNCTAD Sustainable Development Finance Assessment: Case Studies of Indonesia and Sri Lanka”
• To discuss and share experiences on debt sustainability

Programme

10 – 10.55 a.m.

Application of the UNCTAD Sustainable Development Finance Assessment: Case studies, Indonesia and Sri Lanka

• Welcome address (moderator): Mr. Richard Kozul-Wright, Director, Division on Globalization and Development Strategies, UNCTAD
• Keynote address: Dr. P. Nandalal Weerasinghe, Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka
• Introduction to the Sustainable Development Finance Assessment and its application:
  Ms. Penelope Hawkins, Senior Economic Affairs Officer, Division on Globalization and Development Strategies, UNCTAD
• Presentation of the study: Mr. Keith Lockwood, Economics Department of Rand Afrikaans University, and the Gordon Institute of Business Science

10.55 – 11.15 a.m.

Panel discussion

• Mr. Nelson Barbosa, former Finance Minister, Brazil
• Dr. P. K. G. Harischandra, Director, Economic Research Department, Central bank of Sri Lanka
• Mr. Abdul Pulugan, Institute for Development of Economics and Finance, Indonesia

11.15 a.m. – 12 p.m.

Questions and answers from participants