ABSTRACT
The situation of most low-income countries is like that of an absent minded man who has lost his bathplug. The debt problem is not limited to the 51 low-income countries, but they are the ones for whom it is practicable to launch a Jubilee 2000 campaign for total or near-total remission. The total debt of all developing countries is $2,171 billion - a colossal sum which could not possibly be remitted. The countries concerned are in a situation of 'debt overhang', like that of people who have fallen down a deep well, and cannot escape by their own efforts. The country which made the second-largest reduction in the total of debt stocks between 1985 and 1992 was Yugoslavia. No economic force other than the deliberate action of the creditors is going to get the 51 nations out of the well of debt.
