Nigeria, Other Low And Middle Income Countries Paid Nearly $444 Billion To Service Debt in 2022 – World Bank Reveals

A new World Bank report has revealed that Nigeria and other low and middle-income countries paid a record $443.5 billion to service their external public and publicly guaranteed debt in 2022.

Naija News details that the report which was released by the bank on Friday, warned about the dangers confronting low and middle-income nations, stating that debt servicing cost on public and publicly guaranteed debt will grow by 10 per cent for all developing nations in 2023 and 2024.

The World Bank report read, “International Debt Report 2023 sounds an alarm about the danger confronting low- and middle-income countries—particularly the poorest. In 2022, the latest year for which data are available, low- and middle-income countries paid a record US$443.5 billion to service their external public and publicly guaranteed debt. In a time of pinched government budgets, these payments diverted spending away from health, education, and other critical needs.

“Debt servicing costs on public and publicly guaranteed debt are projected to grow by 10 percent for all developing countries over the 2023–24 period—and by nearly 40 percent for low-income countries. Countries eligible to borrow from IDA are likely to face a rough ride in the coming years: interest payments on their total external debt stock have quadrupled since 2012, to an all-time high of US$23.6 billion.”

The report comes just as the President Bola Tinubu-led government continues to take on loans to fund the country’s increasing budget.