A Call by DRGR Co-author Kevin P. Gallagher, Boston University
Fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine will require large scale sovereign debt restructuring to prevent another lost decade of development for many emerging markets and developing countries; during the same ten years they urgently need to mobilize trillions of dollars to combat and adapt to climate change.
Just before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the World Bank sounded the alarm that fiscal and monetary tightening in the advanced economies could lead to another sudden stop in capital flows to emerging markets and developing countries, followed by capital flight, exchange rate depreciation, and debt crises.
War only makes matters worse, as many emerging market and developing countries will suffer from skyrocketing oil, gas, and grain prices. Worse still, a default on Russia’s or Ukraine’s bonds could amplify that same cycle of depreciation and crisis.