Presbyterian Mission features an article by Aldo Caliari detailing the need for a more robust response to the debt crisis borne from the COVID-19 pandemic and Ukraine invasion, particularly from the G-20. Read a brief excerpt below, and click here for the full article.

The International Community Must Respond to the Debt Crisis

By Aldo Caliari

Paying debt service also comes at the expense of infrastructure investments critical for recovering and building resilience to climate and other shocks. Under-investment eventually takes its toll. Many weaknesses in developing countries’ response to the pandemic can be traced back to years of skimping on health and jobs infrastructure. Jubilee USA and LATINDADD’s Atlas of Vulnerability found that in all but two of the developing countries for which it has data, health spending per person is less than a quarter the average in industrialized countries. Africa, with the highest share of population affected by food crises – at 346 million – and dependent on Ukraine and Russia for a high share of food imports, is also the region most vulnerable to climate change. Lack of climate change preparedness, amidst rising floods, water scarcity and other weather-driven events, dramatically lower agricultural output and add to COVID- and war-induced food access barriers.

 

Read here for more.