Still, many countries continued to face an unsustainable debt burden. The total debt of Sub-Saharan African countries rose about 4 percent in 1996, a slower rate of increase than in 1995, when total debt rose 7 percent. Debt is largely owed by and to governments.
Private debt is highly concentrated.
Reducing Africa's debt burden has become a major goal of bilateral and multilateral agencies. Sub-Saharan Africa has become a major focus of efforts by official agencies to ease debt burdens, through Paris Club concessional reschedulings, commercial bank buybacks funded through IDA's Debt Reduction Facility, debt forgiveness by selected bilateral creditors, payments by bilateral creditors of debt service on multilateral debt, and most recently the initiative to solve the debt problem of heavily indebted poor countries. These efforts have eased short-term liquidity constraints facing many debtors and in some cases have resulted in significant declines in the net present value of the debt outstanding. Still, Africa's debt burden remains high. The region's aggregate ratio of debt to exports was estimated at 236.9 percent in 1996, down from 241.7 percent in 1995.