The 2026 spring meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) take place from April 13-19 in Washington, DC. On the agenda is unsustainable debt, which has risen in many developing countries to the point where some cannot meet their obligations absent additional assistance or going into default. According to the Debt Sustainability Analysis of the World Bank Group and the IMF, sixty-nine low-income countries are at some risk of debt distress, i.e., when a country is unable to fulfill its financial obligations and debt restructuring is required. Over half are considered “in distress” (when a country is in arrears on debt payments or a debt restructuring has occurred or is imminent) or at high risk of debt distress (when thresholds for debt burden indicators have been exceeded). This is not a new concern. For decades debt relief efforts have been proposed and adopted to address unsustainable debt in developing countries. Most notably, a similar concern led to the adoption of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative in 1996 and the related Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) in 2005 to “deal decisively with the debt problems of the low-income countries” and end the need for future rounds of debt relief […]