The Global Sovereign Debt Monitor, which is published annually by the German debt relief alliance erlassjahr.de and Misereor, analyses the current debt situation in developing countries and emerging economies. The global comparison shows: the debt crisis has not abated.

The latest Global Sovereign Debt Monitor classifies 130 out of 152 countries in the Global South surveyed as "critically indebted", 24 of them "very critically indebted". Countries in the Global South had to repay more debt to foreign creditors in 2024 than ever before. 45 countries spent over 15 per cent of their income on debt servicing.

Ninety (90) per cent of the world's extremely poor people live in critically or very critically indebted countries. The sub-Saharan Africa region is particularly affected. One of the reasons for this is that the economy in sub-Saharan Africa is growing the slowest compared to other regions of the world in the Global South. In Latin America and the Caribbean as well as in South Asia, South-East Asia and the Pacific, the debt situation is also considered critical or very critical in more than half of the countries surveyed. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the debt situation has been persistently problematic for many years. By contrast, the high level of debt is new in South Asia, South-East Asia and the Pacific. Compared to 2019, the situation here has deteriorated significantly in over 60 per cent of the countries surveyed.

The high level of debt servicing means that indebted countries lack the financial means to tackle climate change mitigation, social issues and investments in the future. Countries with a very critical debt situation in particular are forced to make significant cuts to their public spending. Financing basic social services such as health care, education or water supply is hardly possible in particularly critically indebted countries. The pandemic, war, climate change and subsequent crises have combined to create a permanent polycrisis. Debt servicing is forcing highly indebted countries to make further cuts to their health and social budgets, even during the ongoing crises.

In the midst of a dramatic simultaneity of various crises and more than 20 years after the G8's Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC Initiative), the call for a new "Debt Jubilee Year" for over-indebted countries is more relevant than ever. This is because the measures taken by the G20 to date have not resulted in any substantial debt relief. Together with international debt relief initiatives, we are calling on creditor governments to find a long-term solution to the debt crisis by creating a fair and binding sovereign insolvency process.