UN: The Debt Crisis Threatens 3.3 Billion People in The World

The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, warned that the debt crisis in developing countries threatens a development catastrophe, as governments spend more on debt repayment than they spend on health and education.

"Half of the world is drowning in a development catastrophe fueled by an overwhelming debt crisis," Guterres said, during a presentation of a report to the international organization on the global debt situation, adding that "about 3.3 billion people, or almost half of the world population, reside in countries that spend more on the burdens of debt service than they on education or health.

And the UN chief considered that "since the majority of these unsustainable debts are concentrated in poor countries, they are not considered to constitute a systemic threat to the global financial system."

According to the report titled "A World of Debt", the public debt in the world reached the threshold of $92 trillion in 2022, which is a record level 5 times what it was in 2000.