Half of humanity lives in countries that are forced to spend more on servicing their debt than on health and education

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Last year global public debt reached a record $92 trillion, of which developing countries shoulder 30 per cent – a “disproportionate amount”, the UN chief stressed.

He warned that 3.3 billion people suffer from their governments’ need to prioritize debt interest payments over “essential investments” in the Sustainable Development Goals or the energy transition.

“And yet, because these unsustainable debts are concentrated in poor countries, they are not judged to pose a systemic risk to the global financial system,” the UN Secretary-General added.