Rising Debt Burden and Its Impact on the Implementation of Three (3) Sustainable Development Goals in the Commonwealth African Member Countries (2016-2022)

Abstract

This paper examined rising debt burden and its implication for implementing three (3) selected Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the Commonwealth African member states. The methodology was mainly “Desk Research’’ with data collected from the World Bank Data Online Portal, covering the period 2016-2020. The approach analysis was to compare the estimated debt servicing obligations against estimated costs on investments on the selected SDGs and discuss its implications for successfully meeting these goals by 2030, under the assumption of rising public debt burden and low growth. The findings were as follows: - (i). Public debt stocks in all of these Commonwealth African states were already high, even, before COVID-19 which struck late in 2019, experiencing a very high-debt-to GDP ratios; that was far above 50 percent- Mozambique (116 %), Mauritius (105%), Zambia (85%) and Zimbabwe (61%) were spotted to have very high debt- to-GDP ratio amongst these member states. (ii). economic growth and domestic revenue collection in all of these Commonwealth African member states deteriorated in the year following the outbreak of the COVID-19. This widened the deficit and hence, the cycle of increased borrowing and rising debt burden continued unabated in these member states. (iii). none of these (20) Commonwealth African member states had invested enough in the SDGs to have come closer to meeting the internationally acceptable minimum annual expenditure threshold of 15-20% of GDP needed to achieve any of these three (3) selected SDGs. Governments therefore are encouraged to improve key aspects of macroeconomic fundamentals in order to improve domestic productivity, innovations in private sector involvement and stimulate overall confidence in the domestic economy in order to achieve the SDG agenda 2030.