The International Debt Problem: Prospects and Solutions

Since the eruption of widespread debt crises in mid-1982, a large number of actions have been taken — by governments (of industrial countries as well as major developing country borrowers), by international financial institutions (such as the IMF) and by private banks — to reschedule debts and to seek adjustment by debtor economies; this adjustment of debtor economies was largely geared to assure that within the current international environment, the debtor countries can continue servicing their (usually rescheduled) debts. As Enrique Inglesias, the Chairman of the Cartagena Group, pointed out clearly:2 ‘In the majority of debtor countries, the debt problem has been administered, but not solved’.