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As a debtor country, Zambia has participated at the Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable (GSDR) whose main focus is on the actions urgently needed to accelerate debt restructuring processes, including under the G20 Common Framework.
Participants discussed debt sustainability and debt restructuring challenges and ways to address them.
Other debt country participants are Ecuador, Ethiopia, Ghana, Sri Lanka and Suriname.
Participants who met on Wednesday in Washington D.C agreed on the importance to urgently improve information sharing including on macroeconomic projections and debt sustainability assessments at an early stage of the process.
This is according to a joint statement issued at the end of the meeting by the International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, World Bank Group President, David Malpass, and Indian Minister of Finance, Nirmala Sitharaman, co-chairs of the GSDR.
Read more: IMF says Zambia, other countries’ debt restructuring delays costly
According to the statement, participants agreed on the importance to urgently improve information sharing including on macroeconomic projections and debt sustainability assessments at an early stage of the process.
“To clarify key concepts to support predictability and fairness of debt restructuring processes, a workshop will be organized in the next weeks on how to assess and enforce comparability of treatment.
“Moreover, further work will be undertaken on principles regarding cut-off dates, formal debt service suspension at the beginning of the process, treatment of arrears, and perimeter of debt to be restructured, including with regards to domestic debt. This work will also help in clarifying potential timetables to accelerate debt restructurings,” the statement read.
The meeting discussed the role of Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) in these processes through the provision of net positive flows of concessional finance.
The International Development Association’s (IDA) provision of positive net flows and the ex-ante implicit debt relief through increased concessionality and grants to countries facing higher risks of debt distress was welcomed.
Participants agreed that the IMF, World Bank and the G20 Presidency would continue to work closely together and with other partners to further support the international response to current debt challenges.
Participants to the meeting included the three co-chairs (International Monetary Fund, World Bank and India as G20 Presidency), official bilateral creditors (China, France as chair of the Paris Club, Japan, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, United States), debtor countries (Ecuador, Ethiopia, Ghana, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Zambia).
Others are Brazil as the forthcoming 2024 G20 Presidency and private sector representatives (Institute of International Finance, International Capital Markets Association, Blackrock, Standard Chartered).
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