PERSPECTIVE ECONOMY AND FINANCE NO MORE LOANS? How Creditors Torpedo Debt Relief Initiatives Kristina Rehbein and Jürgen Kaiser October 2021 The debt relief initiatives established in the context of the COVID-19 crisis threaten to fail because poorer countries are reluctant to participate. One reason for this is the claim made primarily by private creditors that the beneficiaries of debt relief exclude themselves long-term from the capital market. However, more important than any short-term downgrade of participating countries is the question whether the debt ­relief goes far enough to ­facilitate an economic restart.