Debt Crisis in the Third World

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: Globalization, Political Economics, grade: 1,3, University of Northampton, course: Global Political Economy, language: English, abstract: [...] In the 1970s, the world trade framework provided possibilities and opportunities for poor economies to grow. However, the harsh reality of poverty in those new independent nations was the main obstacle for any development. Their economic conditions suggested that borrowing money and gaining foreign aids were reasonable courses in the 1970s. In the meantime, the ex-colonial powers began rising awareness of remaining their influence over their past conquests. Considering of remaining economic dependency, western countries showed great willingness of lending money to poor nations. The result was an unprecedented flow of sources from the developed countries to the developing world. A large proportion of sources were in form of loans and international aids from commercial banks and western governments. Many developing countries had very large debts, and the amount of money they owed was quickly increasing. In 1982, Mexico came finally to the brink of default on its foreign debt. The critical situation marked the beginning of the 'Third World Debt Crisis'. In 1970, the fifteen heavily indebted nations (using the World Bank classification of 1989) had an external public debt of $17.923 billion - which amounted to 9.8% for their GNP. By 1987, these same nations owed $402.171 billion, or 47.5% of their GNP. Interest payments owed by these countries went from $2.789 billion in 1970 to $36.251 billion in 1987. In 1991, the developing world as a whole owed a total external debt of $1.362 trillion, or 126.5% of their total exports of goods and services that year (Ferraro, V. & Rosser, M., 1994). Trying to pay off the debt became a serious problem for these countries. The nature and terms as well as the political conditions with them caused great hardship for their people. The debt crisis in the third world is highly linked to the issues of western policies, interest rates, export values and confidence in the international banking system. The crisis is thus an international phenomenon and to understand it fully needs a global perspective. This paper will examine the origins of the debt crisis in the third world in the first part and the consequences in the second part. The third part will give solutions and recommendations followed by conclusion in the fourth part.