Chapter 4 | Page 153 amount and interest on maturity. In today’s interconnected global financial markets, bonds once issued can be traded within or outside the country in bond markets. Revenue from bonds can be highly dependent on the level of investors’ confidence in the ability of the government to pay. If the price of bonds in the bond market is low, this implies that the government is raising less money for its bonds and is required to pay a higher rate at maturity.61 During any economic crisis, bond-holders tend to pressure the bond issuing government to increase the rate of return of the bonds, which in turn creates increased fiscal pressure on the government. In many developing countries, governments issue short-term bonds and T-bills which are bought by the domestic banking sector, a practice which eventually diminishes the government’s overall control of the bond market and increases the power of banks to determine the conditions under which the bonds are sold.62 Given the highly concentrated ownership of government bonds in developing countries, debt-servicing payments go to a few rich individuals or banks, making this akin to a highly regressive resource transfer from the government.63 Thus, the higher level of bond repayment represents a transfer from the poor to the rich, which is detrimental to the principles of equity.64 For these reasons, while debt is a key source of revenue for the government, debt distress or debt crises also have the potential to disrupt the overall health of the economy. Important alternatives to addressing debt management include: emerging hybrid and alternative financing tools such as debt-fordevelopment, which work through debt-equity swaps and commercial debt-fornature exchanges (for example, in Ecuador and Costa Rica); and bilateral or multilateral debt financing arrangements (such as the Debt2Health exchange 61 Ibid., 16. 62 Ibid., 17. 63 Ibid., 18. 64 Dowell-Jones, above n 59 provides an in-depth discussion on the interaction of the global financial market and its impact on the enjoyment of human rights.