Default and recovery statistics : sovereign and sovereign-guaranteed lending 1984-2023

The Global Emerging Markets Risk Database (GEMs) Consortium was established in 2009 as a joint initiative between the European Investment Bank and the International Finance Corporation to pool credit risk data. The GEMs database is designed to support technical cooperation between international institutions and catalyse investments in emerging markets. GEMs comprises 26 member multilateral development banks and development finance institutions with business activities in emerging markets and developing economies. This edition of the report expands the dataset for sovereign and sovereign-guaranteed lending to cover 40 years (1984-2023). It includes recovery rates for defaults and provides statistical metrics with confidence intervals and percentiles. An upward trend in default rates is noted since 2022, with an overall increase in the average annual default rate to 1.06%, driven by the extended dataset period. Recovery rates show high levels, with most defaults achieving a recovery above 90%, and the median time to resolve defaults is slightly over three years.