Sovereign Debt CriSiS: From

relieF to reSolution The current discussion on sovereign debt has concentrated on the predicaments of Europe and other developed countries, which have accumulated new debt very rapidly in recent years (graph 1). The fact that developing countries are not in the spotlight is partly due to the recently improved debt ratios of most developing regions. This largely reflects their stronger growth performance over the past decade, along with the ongoing debt relief for the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs). However, these averages mask substantial heterogeneity among developing countries and do not reveal the vulnerabilities still faced by many of them (table 1)