Restructuring gets the summits; debt management gets the training workshops. Yet in a low-income country, the debt office is crisis-prevention and early-warning infrastructure, not a narrow technical function – and a fundamental institutional reform is overdue. All four G20 Common Framework applicants (Chad, Ethiopia, Ghana and Zambia) had passed through the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative, with relief between 2004 and 2015. Each returned to distress. […]