Oil prices went up a lot in the 1970s.

This meant that a lot of money went to

--------- countries that use a lot of oil. countries that produce a lot of oil.

These banks loaned a lot of money to Third World countries for development projects.

    Third World Countries are --------- rich countries. poor countries.


Many of the Third World countries sell commodities (for example, bananas and coffee) to rich countries. The profits from these sales are very important for the economies of these countries.

However, when interest rates went up, the world economy became worse. Commodity prices went down.

Many of these countries found it --------- easy difficult to pay back their loans.