UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, has said that innovative measures to address debt are required to help more than 100 middle-income countries expand their economies and exit the COVID-19 pandemic.
Guterres told the General Assembly on Thursday at UN headquarters in New York while addressing a high-level meeting on these countries.
According to him, middle-income countries account for more than half of the UN’s 193 Member States, underlining the need for financing to help them recover in the wake of the global crisis.
He said middle-income countries should have their debts suspended till 2022 to cope with the social and economic impact of the coronavirus.
Many were already dealing with mounting debt before the pandemic, which has only further aggravated the situation.
According to him, diversity defines the world’s middle-income countries, which were already home to some 62 per cent of the world’s poor prior to the pandemic.
