The history of debt relief goes back several decades. It reveals that a country's accumulation of unsustainable debt stems from such factors as deficiencies in macroeconomic management, adverse terms-of-trade shocks, and poor governance. Debt-relief initiatives have provided debt-burdened...

International Debt Statistics (IDS), a long-standing annual publication of the World Bank, features external debt statistics and analysis for the 123 low- and middle-income countries that report to the World Bank Debtor Reporting System. IDS 2022 includes (1) an overview analyzing global trends...