Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps she is taking to help ensure developing country debt repayments do not undermine poverty reducing public spending and progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals.

Borrowing can be an important tool to enable developing countries to make the productive investments that they need to make progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. However, repayments on excessive debt levels can crowd out other vital areas of public spending. The UK supports the IMF and World Bank’s multi-pronged work programme to promote debt transparency and sustainability in low-income countries. This includes both engagement with borrowers to improve their debt management, and with creditors to help support sustainable lending practices and creditor coordination. The UK will continue to work with other G20 members to monitor progress on this, as well as on the initiative led by the Institute of International Finance to improve the transparency of lending of private creditors, and steps being taken to improve official creditor mechanisms through the on-going implementation of the G20 Operational Guidelines for Sustainable Financing.