Excerpt from nationnews.com
President of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Abdulla Shahid appealed for a solution to the long-standing debt burden faced by Small Island Developing States (SIDS).
Addressing the two-day SIDS conference that ended on Tuesday in the Antigua & Barbuda capital, Shahid said SIDS were facing several situations not of their own making, ranging from the impact of climate change to that of debt consolidation.
He said the debt situation “leads us to borrowing at high rates which in turn contributes to increasing debt in a vicious cycle” with compounding crisis heightening the debt burden.
“The need for the long-term solution to the debt crisis we face is indeed critical,” he said. “The debt obligations faced by SIDS globally are unsustainable and immoral.
“To remedy this, global financial systems should be streamlined, so that future debt servicing considers the vulnerabilities faced by countries in special situations, and the impact of onerous debt in their efforts to recover better.
“We know there are no one size fits all solution as we endeavour to get back on track of meeting the SDGs (UN Sustainable Development Goals) targets, we should be mindful of the limitations of traditional development measures.”
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