Particularly for governments in the Global South, no such course of action was possible. Far from increasing spending on fiscal priorities such as feeding the hungry, countries in the Global South were constrained by the imperatives of debt repayment. In the instant that COVID-19 shut down the economy, the possibility of paying debts evaporated, and the number of hungry soared.

The G20’s Debt Service Suspension Initiative suspended debt repayments from April 2020 to December 2021. Interest continued to accrue, and only one private lender joined the G20 in the suspension initiative, which had an estimated value of US$12.9 billion. By the time it expired, both food prices and interest rates had started to rise. With those rises came calls to meet both the needs of the hungry — whose income invariably had not kept pace with the cost of eating — and the demands of creditors.

特别是对于全球南方国家的政府来说，这样的行动方针是不可能的。南半球国家非但没有增加粮食优先事项（例如养活饥饿人口）的支出，反而受到偿还债务的紧迫性的限制。在 COVID-19 导致经济停摆的那一刻，偿还债务的可能性就消失了，饥饿人数猛增。

G20暂停偿债倡议从2020年4月至2021年12月暂停偿还债务。利息持续累积，只有一家私人贷款机构加入了G20暂停偿债倡议，该倡议的价值估计为129亿美元。当它到期时，食品价格和利率都开始上涨。随着价格上涨，人们呼吁既要满足饥饿者的需求（他们的收入总是跟不上饮食成本的增长），又要满足债权人的要求。