Reprieve and Mercy: Debt Relief for the Developing World during Coronavirus

This paper seeks to highlight key issues pertaining to debt relief and moratoria under the Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI), including the importance of debt relief under public resource constraints in the developing world, the difficult trade-offs of capital markets access and accruing interest payments, the need for prolonging moratoria, and the disinterest of private creditors in the rehabilitation of third world economies. The findings suggest that, while international cooperation on debt relief is necessary during the pandemic, the distorted motives of private power make the rescue of developing world a more difficult proposition.