Ahead of the Summit of the Future, Rebeca Grynspan highlights how debt burdens are crippling developing nations’ abilities to invest in critical services and their people.
With 3.3 billion people living in countries that spend more on debt repayments than on health or education, UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Secretary-General Rebeca Grynspan is calling for sweeping reforms to the multilateral financial system.
In an interview with the UN Library in Geneva as part of the "Journey to the Summit of the Future" series, she highlights the strain on developing nations forced to choose between servicing their debt and serving their people.
She emphasizes that the debt crisis is ultimately a development crisis.
'People suffer, markets don't'
“Countries cannot pay their debt and develop at the same time,” she says. “People are suffering, but markets are not.”
According to UN data, 40% of developing countries, home to 40% of people living in extreme poverty, face severe debt problems. The situation, Ms. Grynspan explains, is largely due to systemic shocks, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and not necessarily to poor decision-making.
The Secretary-General calls for lasting solutions beyond ad-hoc relief programmes like the G20's Common Framework, advocating for stronger governance, transparent financing mechanisms and scaled-up multilateral development banks. She also urges greater private sector involvement to reduce the perceived risks of investing in developing nations.
The Summit of the Future, set to take place at the UN Headquarters in New York in September 2024, will bring together world leaders to forge a "Pact for the Future."
Ms. Grynspan says the summit is a critical opportunity to “create hope that we can do things differently and better for the populations of the world”.
