If an impoverished nation can spend less for interest on its public debt, more money will be left to buy food for its malnourished people. If an impoverished nation can spend less for interest on its public debt, more money will be left to buy food for its malnourished people. But, as a practical matter, nobody is starving because of high interest payments.
Hunger results from severe weather, wars or government mismanagement.
Zimbabwe is a textbook example of the latter. The former Rhodesia's problems arguably began in 1997, when President Robert Mugabe sought to end unrest by awarding large, unbudgeted payments to veterans. He further drained the treasury by getting heavily involved in the Congo's civil war. Badly needed overseas investors were scared off by the seizure of private farms and his talk of nationalizing the lucrative mining industry. Mugabe has overspent his budget by 25 percent this year, according to the British Broadcasting Corp., and the gross domestic product is expected to shrink by perhaps 5 percent.