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Liberia's Debt Déjà Vu: The Debt Relapse Liberia Never Saw Coming

In 2010, Liberia received US$4.6 billion in debt cancellation under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative and Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Liberia's debt cancellation represented the largest extended to a single Sub-Saharan African country since the inception of the HIPC Initiative in 1996. Fifteen years later, public debt stands at US$2.63 billion, equivalent to 57.2 percent of GDP at end-2024. Both the IMF and World Bank now rate Liberia at high risk of overall public debt distress. This paper seeks to answer the central research question: How has Liberia's debt profile evolved in recent years, and what are the implications for its economic stability and policy interventions? […]