G7 leaders meeting in France this week called for faster debt relief, even as the main tool for delivering it has reached only four countries, all African.
At their summit in Évian from June 15 to 17, G7 leaders said rising debt burdens threaten global stability and recommitted to delivering relief in a predictable, timely and coordinated way. They pledged to speed up the G20 Common Framework for Debt Treatments, the main route for the poorest countries to seek debt reduction, and to find a way to help middle income countries that cannot use it.
The promise meets a hard record. Since the G20 agreed the framework in 2020, only four countries have applied for relief through it: Chad, Ethiopia,…