Guidance on Standstill Implementation

On April 14, the G-7 announced they would support an initiative to suspend the debt payments of the world’s poor countries, but only if the G-20 agree to the proposal. In advance of the G-20 decision, a group of experts from various institutions – economists and legal scholars – have drafted guidelines for how a standstill on debt service payments by sovereign borrowers might be implemented. Their goal is to provide best practices for implementation that would protect many of the world’s poorest nations from default as they grapple to deal with the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The implementation guidance can be found here.