“Results obtained in this study confirm that an excessively high stock of external debt
depresses investment and lowers the rate of economic growth. Thus, heavily indebted
countries in sub-Saharan Africa need to articulate creative strategies for bringing about debt reduction so that the high debt stock and associated crushing debt service burden would not have such a negative impact on economic growth. Traditional debt relief
mechanisms currently being used by SSA countries include debt restructuring, debt
rescheduling, reduced debt servicing, debt buy-backs, interest rate options, and various
debt conversion schemes like the debt-equity swap. Overall, the effectiveness of these
techniques in significantly reducing the debt stock has been rather limited.”
