AN APPLICATION OF THE LATENT DIRICHLET ALLOCATION MODEL

2025-12-18T08:46:49.213670+00:00
AN APPLICATION OF THE LATENT DIRICHLET ALLOCATION MODEL

In the mid-20th century, several supranational organisations came into existence to address the desire for strong human rights and the rule of law. Countries in the Global South, particularly those from Southern Africa, sought to advance their national political liberation through supranational efforts, hence the birth of the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC), which eventually became the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The SADC, with its Vision 2050, aims to promote peace and security sustenance as socioeconomic transformation in Southern Africa. However, while the SADC functions to operate in a collaborative fashion, member states have struggled with achieving debt sustainability. In response, the Paris Club, an informal organisation of creditor countries, created innovative debt relief solutions for indebted countries. These solutions are referenced in the Paris Club’s archives, which is the central data source for this study. To derive insights from these archives, this study utilised the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) model to thematically analyse the Paris Club’s archives targeted towards SADC member states. The results from this study substantiate the Paris Club’s role in facilitating debt restructuring efforts, such as debt service suspensions, when interacting with the SADC, particularly prioritising the debt sustainability of Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Seychelles, and Zambia.