As the debt crisis has unfolded in many of the world’s poorest countries, much attention has focused on seeking individual debt restructurings through the G20 Common Framework. This remains a priority, but the implementation remains slow and lacks the predictability needed to provide debtors and creditors with confidence. The Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable and the April 26 World Bank debt conference, Breaking the Impasse in Global Debt Restructuring, discussed effective debt restructurings and debt sustainability.  The conference also addressed how to avoid excessive debt build-up; and pressing questions regarding the debt sustainability implications of a decline of net international reserves into negative territory as countries draw on debt-like instruments such as swap lines. Following this week’s G7 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting in Japan, we will publish the initial findings from a recent debt reconciliation initiative, which points to many technical challenges in agreeing on the amounts of debt to be treated in a restructuring. […]