The burden of unsustainable debt and crippling interest bills has been high on the international agenda for some years. Declarations from the UN secretary-general, the pope, the president of the African Union, the managing director of the IMF, Nobel laureates, and a variety of other national and international leaders have stressed that addressing the widespread and growing debt problem facing low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is an urgent priority. And yet, progress has been disappointingly limited, while the magnitude of the problem continues to grow. […]