期刊
AJAR-AFRICAN JOURNAL OF AIDS RESEARCH
卷 21, 期 2, 页码 110-122出版社
TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.2989/16085906.2022.2104168
关键词
debt; developing countries; fiscal; health; multi-crises
资金
- Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS)
This article assesses the impact of the HIV and COVID-19 pandemics and debt dynamics on health financing in developing countries. It found an inadequate multilateral response, with rising and unsustainable debt levels crowding out investments in health. The findings suggest that fiscal policymakers should be concerned about the crowding-out and constraining effects of public debt.
This article assesses the impact of the HIV and COVID-19 pandemics and debt dynamics on health, HIV and pandemic preparedness and response-related financing in developing countries. Using a novel dataset, we did a cross-national systematic analysis of all data sources available for government expenditures on health, HIV, COVID-19 and debt servicing in selected developing countries. We found an inadequate multilateral response with the ensuing gaps allowing both pandemics to thrive. The G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative and the Common Framework only covered countries with a third of the global population of people living with HIV. Rising and unsustainable debt levels are limiting the capacity of governments to protect the health of their populations. Government spending is already falling in response to high debt payments. Specifically, debt servicing is crowding out lifesaving investments. In 2020, for every USD 5 available, USD 4 was spent on debt servicing. Only USD 1 was invested in health. This is a binding constraint on countries' efforts to control COVID-19. Even with a gargantuan effort to increase health expenditure, the outlook for health financing remains negative. Fiscal consolidation, with a heavy emphasis on expenditure cuts, is expected to take place across 139 countries in the coming years. These findings suggest that fiscal policymakers should be concerned about the crowding-out and constraining effects of public debt. To this end, pragmatic recommendations are made to treat and cancel debt as a critical policy lever to accelerate the end of the HIV and COVID-19 pandemics in developing countries as a key condition to addressing the growing inequalities and to ensure debt can be a benefit, not a burden.
作者
我是这篇论文的作者
点击您的名字以认领此论文并将其添加到您的个人资料中。
推荐
暂无数据