Ahead of the next meeting of G-20 finance ministers, pressure is mounting to prevent messy defaults and possible contagion from the debt crisis in low- and middle-income countries, which is worsening and threatening to set back years of development and anti-poverty gains.
Ministers from the group of major economies are due to meet later this month at the same time as the yearly Spring Meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
Complicating already dire affairs, however, is U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s threat to skip the April 20 session in Washington if Russia takes part, because of the country’s invasion of Ukraine. Without the U.S., solutions to the debt issue seem ever more distant.