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Debt distress and development distress: Twin crises of 2021

Just over a year into the COVID-19 crisis, it is apparent that there is great urgency for governments to address an overlapping set of issues—among them health, climate, nature, resilience, recovery, jobs, and inequality—at a scale far larger than would have been imaginable before the onset of the crisis. The developing world is currently facing twin crises—a balance of payments and debt crisis that may upend development progress, and a development crisis that could erupt into a debt crisis as the state of the economy deteriorates.