Developing countries pay record US$1.4 trln on foreign debt in 2023

Developing countries spent a record US$1.4 trillion to service their foreign debt as their interest costs climbed to a 20-year high in 2023, the World Bank’s latest International Debt Report shows. Interest payments surged by nearly a third to US$406 billion, squeezing the budgets of many countries in critical areas such as health, education and the environment.

The financial strain was fiercest for the poorest and most vulnerable countries—those eligible to borrow from the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA), the data show. These countries paid a record US$96.2 billion to service their debt in 2023. Although repayments of principal decreased by nearly 8% to US$61.6 billion, interest costs surged to an all-time high of US$34.6 billion in 2023, four times the amount a decade ago. On average, interest payments of IDA countries now amount to nearly 6% of the export earnings of IDA-eligible countries—a level that hasn’t been seen since 1999. For some countries, the percentage range runs as high as 38% of export earnings. 

As credit conditions tightened, the World Bank and other multilateral institutions became the primary lifeline for the poorest economies. Since 2022, foreign private creditors have received nearly US$13 billion more in debt-service payments from public-sector borrowers in IDA-eligible economies than they have disbursed in new financing. Over the same period, the Bank and other multilateral institutions pumped in nearly US$51 billion more in 2022 and 2023 than they collected in debt-service payments. The World Bank accounted for a third of that sum—US$28.1 billion.

“Multilateral institutions have become the last lifeline for poor economies struggling to balance debt payments with spending on health, education, and other key development priorities,” said Indermit Gill, the World Bank Group’s chief economist and senior vice president. “In highly indebted poor countries, multilateral development banks are now acting as lenders of last resort, a role they were not designed to serve. That reflects a broken financing system: except for funds from the World Bank and other multilateral institutions, money is flowing out of poor economies when it should be flowing in.”

The COVID-19 pandemic sharply enlarged the debt burdens of all developing countries—and the subsequent surge in global interest rates has made it harder for many to regain their footing. At the end of 2023, the total external debt owed by all low- and middle-income countries stood at a record US$8.8 trillion, an 8% increase over 2020. The percentage increase was more than twice as large for IDA-eligible countries, where total external debt climbed to US$1.1 trillion, an increase of nearly 18%.

In 2023, borrowing abroad became considerably more expensive for all developing countries. Interest rates on loans from official creditors doubled to more than 4%. Rates charged by private creditors climbed by more than a percentage point to 6%—a 15-year high. Global interest rates have since begun to subside, although they are expected to remain above the average that prevailed in the decade before COVID-19.

The latest International Debt Report highlights key insights from the World Bank’s International Debt Statistics database—the most comprehensive and transparent source of external debt data for developing countries. It reflects an upgraded effort to ensure accuracy in the debt data of IDA-eligible economies—by matching data these economies report to the World Bank’s Debtor Reporting System with data held by G7 and Paris Club creditors. This loan-by-loan reconciliation exercise produced a 98 percent match rate in the data, lowering the margin of error from 10 points to just two.

“Comprehensive data on the liabilities of governments can facilitate new investment, reduce corruption, and prevent costly debt crises,” said Fu Haishan, the World Bank’s chief statistician and director of the development data group. “The World Bank has played a leading role in improving debt transparency across the world, especially in IDA-eligible economies. In 2023, nearly 70% of these economies published fully accessible public-debt data on a government website—a 20-point increase since 2020. That is a hopeful sign for the future.”