07 March 2023

Sovereign governments cannot assess their own creditworthiness because of conflict of interest. When sovereigns issue bonds they need a third-party assessment of their creditworthiness, encapsulated in a rating, to attract potential investors. Private credit rating agencies (CRAs) have filled this void as third parties who provide assessments on sovereigns’ ability and willingness to service debt commitments. Their assessments constitute financial information.

07 March 2023

Traditional sovereign debt has been used for a long time. The benefit of accessing to these international markets is that the country can smooth national consumption over time. The main disadvantage is that repayment is a rigid commitment; hence countries face difficulties to honor the debt service when an adverse event occurs. That is, countries, especially developing ones, can hardly avoid the pain of pro-cyclical adjustment.

02 March 2023

Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) were created by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1969 at a time of international reserve scarcity to supplement the reserve assets of IMF member countries. SDRs are not money per se but rather a potential claim on freely usable currencies of member countries. SDRs can be traded for these currencies at a variable but very low rate of interest. SDRs are a source of liquidity that can be particularly useful to small and financially constrained economies.

29 November 2022

Since the launch of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2030 Agenda) in 2015, many developing countries have seen their external financial positions deteriorate, first gradually and recently at a greater speed due to compounding global shocks, including the uneven recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, the rapidly worsening climate crisis, the armed conflict in Ukraine and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.

18 October 2022

This paper evaluates and analyzes the use of State-Contingent Debt Instruments (SCDIs) to support policy responses and strategies for Latin America and the Caribbean with the main objective of preserving the policy space necessary to both weather the immediate economic impacts and build forward better. This papers builds on a growing body of research examining how state-contingent borrowing can help governments better manage their debt commitments and contribute to improved welfare outcomes.

29 September 2022

This report looks at the UNCTAD Sustainable Development Finance Assessment (SDFA) framework, and the research (theoretical and empirical) undertaken by UNCTAD consultants from a policy perspective. To do this, the report explores the contributions of Thirlwall and Pasinetti, whose work forms the main theoretical foundation of the UNCTAD SDFA framework.

29 September 2022

La financiación soberana es una de las áreas menos desarrolladas del derecho internacional, ya que la deuda soberana se rige principalmente por la legislación nacional. Por eso, no existen límites claros en cuanto al comportamiento de los acreedores y los prestatarios, ni tampoco en cuanto a las expectativas de dicho comportamiento. Este vacío legal ha impedido que se implantasen medidas disuasorias adecuadas ante prácticas no responsables o subóptimas de otorgamiento y toma de préstamos soberanos.

20 September 2022

In the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) (2008-2009) the external financing needs of Latin America and the Caribbean have increased significantly reflecting a process of external debt accumulation that has occurred in all developing regions. This process of debt accumulation has been reinforced by the impacts of COVID 19. As things stand, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is the most indebted region in the developing world.

16 September 2022

This user manual i) introduces the theoretical foundation of the UNCTAD Sustainable Development Finance Assessment Framework Policy Dashboard, ii) demonstrates how the dashboard was built, and iii) provides a step-by-step guideline to adapt the SDFA policy dashboard to other countries. The SDFA dashboard determines trends in the sustainability of their external, public sector and integrated financial positions.

23 August 2022

This study undertakes a comprehensive and detailed review of Zambia’s income tax regime. It is largely guided by UNECA’s analytical framework for direct tax system. In order to inform how the tax system may realistically be reformed, it was necessary to go back to the basics by assessing the base upon which the tax system is premised. By assessing the personal income tax, corporate income tax and mineral royalties, we make a distinction between what the tax base ought to be, what the tax law says about how the taxes should be collected and how they are actually collected.