‘Structural Adjustment’ or Debt Relief: The Case of Arab LLDCs

Managing periphery debts has been the leading issue in development economics during the last decade. Due to the greater sums involved the focus was initially on Latin America and later on the so-called HICs (Highly Indebted Countries), which include three African countries: the Ivory Coast, Morocco and Nigeria. The rest of Africa or the countries grouped under the label of Least-Developed Countries (LLDCs) did not receive that much attention, though their relative debt burdens have frequently been heavier than those of the big debtors. The reasons are simple: the total amount of Sub-Saharan debt (excluding HICs), for example, was just $86.6 b. in 1987 according to the IBRD (1989),1 most of it to official creditors or officially guaranteed. In other words, the whole region owed much less than Brazil or Mexico alone, or roughly double as much as Nigeria and the Ivory Coast together, and private banks whose interests have been so important to the US administration are scarcely exposed.