A/RES/73/221
External debt sustainability and development
Welcoming the Paris Agreement 1 and its early entry into force, and encouraging
all its parties to fully implement the Agreement, and parties to the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change 2 that have not yet done so to deposit their
instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, wh ere appropriate, as
soon as possible,
Recalling the Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and Its
Impact on Development and its outcome document, 3
Emphasizing that debt sustainability is essential for underpinning growth,
underlining the importance of debt sustainability, debt transparency and effective debt
management to the efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, and
acknowledging that debt crises are costly and disruptive, including for employment
and productive investment, and tend to be followed by cuts in public spending,
including on health and education, affecting the poor and vulnerable in particular,
Reaffirming that each country has primary responsibility for its own
development and that the role of national policies and development strategies,
including in the area of debt management, is central to the achievement of sustainable
development, and recognizing that national efforts, including to achieve development
goals and to maintain debt sustainability, should be complemented by supportive
global programmes, measures and policies aimed at expanding the development
opportunities of developing countries, while taking into account national conditions
and ensuring respect for national ownership, strategies and sover eignty,
Reiterating that debt sustainability depends on a confluence of many factors at
the international and national levels, and emphasizing that country-specific
circumstances and the impact of external shocks, such as volatile commodity and
energy prices, and of international capital flows, should continue to be taken into
account in debt sustainability analyses,
Expressing concern about the adverse impact of the continuing fragility of the
global economy and the slow pace of the restoration of glob al growth and trade,
including the impact on development, cognizant that the global economy remains in
a challenging phase, with many downside risks, including net negative capital flows
from some emerging and developing economies, continued low commodity prices,
high unemployment, in particular among young people, and rising private and public
indebtedness in many developing countries, and stressing the need for continuing
efforts to address systemic fragilities and imbalances and to reform and strengthen
the international financial system while implementing the reforms agreed upon to date
to attend to these challenges and to make progress towards sustaining global demand,
Expressing deep concern that global growth has remained strongly dependent
on unprecedented increases in global debt stocks in the years since the global financial
crisis, and, in conjunction with the fast integration of developing countries into
international financial markets, including for purposes of debt refinancing, exposes a
growing number of developing economies to highly sensitive and amplified reactions
to even mildly adverse economic developments, or the perception of such, in financial
markets,
Underlining that, globally, the gross domestic product growth rate could
increase significantly if every country achieved gender equality, and recognizing that
the economic and social losses owing to a lack of progress in achieving gender
equality and the empowerment of women and girls are significant,
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Adopted under the UNFCCC in FCCC/CP/2015/10/Add.1, decision 1/CP.21.
United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 1771, No. 30822.
Resolution 63/303, annex.
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