Sub-Saharan Africa Spends 3. 6 Times More on Debt Service Than on Education, UNESCO Says
Sub-Saharan African countries allocate on average 3. 6 times more to debt service than to education, and eight of the region's countries rank among the 18 Southern nations where debt-service payments run at least five times higher than public education spending. Angola tops the regional ranking, spending 12. 2 times more on. . .
Sub-Saharan African countries allocate on average 3. 6 times more to debt service than to education, and eight of the region's countries rank among the 18 Southern nations where debt-service payments run at least five times higher than public education spending. Angola tops the regional ranking, spending 12. 2 times more on debt service than on education, ahead of Sierra Leone (8. 4), Gambia (6. 2), Republic of Congo (5. 9), Zambia (5. 9), Mauritius (5. 3), Uganda (5. 3) and Chad (5. 1). Domestic debt now accounts for 62% of total debt service on average, and it competes directly with the recurrent spending that funds teacher salaries and school operations. Sub-Saharan African countries devote on average 3. 6 times more financial resources to debt service than to education, and this weakens the foundations of their future productivity and their long-term debt sustainability, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) warned in a report published on July 10, 2026. The report, titled "Breaking the debt trap: policy paper on restoring fiscal space to save education,"specifies that eight countries in the region rank among the 18 Southern nations whose debt-service payments run at least five times higher than public education spending. Angola leads the region, spending 12. 2 times more on debt service than on education, ahead of Sierra Leone (8. 4 times), Gambia (6. 2), the Republic of Congo (5. 9), Zambia (5. 9), Mauritius (5. 3), Uganda (5. 3) and Chad (5. 1). The situation, however, does not concern Sub-Saharan Africa alone. The amount countries devote to debt service now exceeds their education spending across most of the Global South. In 2025, debt service exceeded public education spending in 113 Southern countries, home to some 6. 1 billion people. This imbalance grows even sharper in low-income countries, where debt service absorbs 3. 8 times the amount of education spending, while the ratio reaches 3. 3 in lower-middle-income countries. The fiscal room available to invest in social and economic development therefore stays extremely limited. Unlike capital or social spending, debt service remains essentially non-discretionary. Governments under fiscal strain therefore tend to adjust education budgets, which they often perceive as flexible in the short term, in order to avoid default. As a result, education financing has become a residual line in the government budgets of heavily indebted Southern countries. A growing weight of domestic debtSince 2017, on average, each additional U. S. dollar spent to repay debt has coincided, in real terms, with a drop of about $0. 28 in education spending. As a result, low- and middle-income countries fall short by $97 billion each year of the funds they need to meet national targets tied to UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4, which aims to guarantee everyone equitable, free and quality education throughout life. At the macro-fiscal level, this weakens the development of knowledge and skills, which harms productivity and, paradoxically, reduces the revenue that future debt sustainability requires. Very high debt-service ratios thus trigger a kind of chain reaction, whereby fiscal consolidation, through cuts to social spending and to education in particular, damages both development outcomes and long-term debt dynamics. While policymakers in Africa and elsewhere long focused on external debt, the report notes on the other hand that domestic debt now emerges as a significant, and often more damaging, source of pressure on education systems. Unlike external debt, domestic borrowing in many low- and middle-income countries carries short maturities, brief grace periods, high interest rates and concentrated creditor bases in which a few commercial banks dominate. On average, domestic debt makes up 62% of total debt service, and 101 countries devote more than half of their debt service to repaying domestic claims. Domestic debt service therefore absorbs a large share of recurrent spending, and it competes directly with the social sector's payroll and operating budgets. Recurrent spending funds teacher salaries, teaching materials, school maintenance and support services, and consolidation efforts most often target precisely this category for cuts. Over time, budget constraints undermine education outcomes and widen inequality, and they weaken the resilience of systems against shocks, with effects that hit girls, rural populations and low-income households disproportionately. Ineffective restructuring mechanismsForecasts show that debt service in low- and middle-income countries should remain very high until the mid-2030s if current policies continue. Rising interest rates and repeated external shocks have exposed countries to self-reinforcing pressures. As the debt burden grows, rating agencies downgrade their assessments, which drives up financing costs and limits market access, and this locks the affected countries into a vicious circle where new borrowing mainly serves to repay debt rather than to finance recovery and development. Refinancing needs, moreover, now run larger and riskier than in previous crises, since a growing share of debt carries market rates and short maturities, which exposes these countries to rollover risk. At the same time, the creditor landscape has shifted markedly: private creditors and non-Paris Club bilateral lenders now represent the majority of new financing sources, which complicates coordination and slows restructurings. Restructurings therefore now do less to restore governments' room to maneuver. They grant only marginal and temporary relief, and debt service holds at unsustainable levels. Current debt-sustainability frameworks, taken together, fail to protect education systems, because they weight repayment capacity more heavily than development objectives and do not properly account for domestic debt dynamics. Their safeguards around social spending, moreover, remain too weak, too loosely binding or poorly enforced. To correct these persistent gaps, UNESCO recommends that international forums such as the G20, international financial institutions and creditors revise debt-sustainability frameworks and restructuring mechanisms, so that they grant sufficient relief, ring-fence education spending in medium-term budgets, and pair debt reductions with affordable education financing through grants and concessional loans. Walid Kéfi