Debt servicing directly reduces health budgets and costs children’s lives

Evidence

These capital outflows hamper development in many ways. Economic growth is weaker due to low investment rates, while available domestic resources, instead of being mobilised to increase internal productive capacities, are mostly dedicated to the repayment of illegitimate debts, not to mention the power inequalities created by the accumulation of foreign financial assets by the African ruling classes. All these elements reinforce the extroversion of African economies, while making the advent of legitimate political regimes serving the public interest more difficult. The most serious aspect of this whole affair, as Léonce Ndikumana and James Boyce point out, is the resulting human drama. The money spent to repay the foreign debt is money that is taken away from health and education. According to their estimates, every dollar spent in Africa for servicing the debt translates into a 29 per cent reduction in the health budget (which, in more tragic terms, can be translated economically as follows: every $140,000 allocated to the debt service, a child dies). — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 318

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Debt service spending directly kills children in Africa.

Related

• Debt service spending directly kills children in Africa. (similarity 0.98)
• Debt service consumes more South African revenue than health care does (similarity 0.83)