The Global debt crisis effects low and middle-income countries in Africa, South America and East Asia; but the cirsis is at its most severe in Sub-Saharan Africa. The All-Party Parliamentary Group on HIPC (2005, p. 41) has estimated sub-Saharan Africn debt stocks to be $211 bn, and calculates that between 2000 and 2002 the region paid out around $19 billion per year in debt service (p. 38). This debt service is equivalent to about one tenth of annual export earnings for the region, or half the development aid recieved by the region annually (Commission for Africa 2005, p. 115).

During Africa’s “lost decades’ (1980-2000). their were times in which the most-heavily-indebted low-income countries were spending more on debt service than on health and education combined (IMF 2005a). Since most debts are denominated in dollars, high levels of debt service impell low income countries to concentrate on producing primary goods for export, this can unbalance they’re economies, degrade natural enviroments and generate food insecurity, since cash crop’s or mineral extraction then take precedent over bio-diversity and food production for local use (Miller, 1991 p. 7). High debt service also discourages private investment, since investor do not want to see there money paid back out again to international lenders (Clements et. al., 2005).