HARARE – A growing international outcry for urgent debt relief across Africa has coincided with alarming new assessments from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank showing that Zimbabwe’s total public debt has ballooned to US$23.3 billion, significantly higher than official government estimates.
The latest World Bank and IMF reports highlight that Zimbabwe remains in debt distress, with obligations now accounting for nearly 73% of gross domestic product (GDP).
The figures, however, differ sharply from the Finance Ministry’s own data, which placed the country’s debt at US$21 billion at the end of 2024, a variance of over US$2 billion.
According to the World Bank’s 2025 economic update, “Zimbabwe continues to face high and unsustainable public debt that restricts access to international financing.”
The IMF echoed these concerns in its recent Article IV Consultation, noting that the government’s current economic policies appear insufficient to resolve the long-standing debt crisis.
The IMF said Zimbabwe’s external debt stock reached US$16.7 billion, while arrears to official creditors were estimated at US$7.4 billion. It added that Harare had begun falling behind on some domestic debt obligations, amounting to US$425 million in 2025.
Zimbabwe has been accumulating arrears for over two decades, cutting it off from new credit lines from major lenders such as the The Bretton Woods institutions.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration has repeatedly appealed for debt restructuring and relief since 2017, but slow progress on governance and economic reforms has undermined those efforts.
Meanwhile, the wider African debt crisis has drawn renewed global attention.
A letter signed by more than 30 prominent economists, including Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, former South African finance minister Trevor Manuel, and former Colombian central bank governor José Antonio Ocampo, has urged the IMF and World Bank to provide immediate debt relief to low- and middle-income countries.
The signatories warned that mounting debt servicing costs are forcing governments to divert funds from essential services. According to their analysis, 32 African countries now spend more on external debt payments than on healthcare, while 25 allocate more to debt than education.
“The problem is clear: countries around the world are paying exorbitant debt servicing costs instead of paying for schools, hospitals, climate action or other essential services,” read part of the statement.
“Many of these countries are not formally defaulting on debt, but they are defaulting on development. African governments now spend an average of 17% of revenues on debt servicing.
“A cap of 10% in 21 countries could unlock enough money to provide clean water and sanitation to roughly 10million people, as well as avert roughly 23,000 under-5 deaths each year.
The call comes amid deepening fiscal strain across the continent.
According to Aljazeera, a recent ActionAid survey revealed that 97% of healthcare workers in six African countries said their pay no longer meets basic living costs, while nine in ten reported medicine and equipment shortages due to budget constraints.
