After being shut out of international financial markets in the wake of COVID-19 and the rise in international interest rates, many low-income countries have increasingly resorted to domestic debt issuance to cope with growing financing needs.  The trend highlights the importance of developing well-functioning and liquid domestic securities markets. They can serve as essential safeguards during challenging times and a reliable source of funding during more stable periods. However, not all domestic debt is created equal. For the latest update of the Domestic Debt Securities Heatmap, we have collected new data on domestic debt stocks across 53 out of the 75 countries borrowing from IDA, the World Bank’s fund for the poorest. The data, directly sourced from government’s statistics, reveals that domestic debt amounts to 23.6% of the countries’ GDP on average. In nine countries, it exceeds 40%. […]