<p>The aim of the study is twofold. First, although numerous empirical studies examine how overall debt levels and macroeconomic factors influence default probabilities, few have explored the role of debt composition in determining default risk. Utilizing data from the recent wave of sovereign defaults and World Bank International Debt Statistics, this study attempted to fill this gap by examining how the debt composition (especially PPG-Private Creditor versus PPG-Official debt) affect the historical default probabilities of emerging and developing economies. Secondly, with empirical evidence on the linkages between debt servicing burden, external financing needs and debt composition also being scant at best, this paper investigates the impact of a country’s composition of debt on the probability of breaching indicative thresholds for debt servicing burden and external financing needs. The empirical findings are broadly encouraging. In general, this study finds that that the probability of sovereign debt default to increase with ratio of PPG-Private Creditor debt, while the likelihood of default to decrease when the relative proportion of PPG-Official debt increases. Estimation results also found that relatively higher proportions of concessional debt stocks to reduce the likelihood of debt distress, and that the probability to exceed both debt servicing burden and external financing need thresholds to rise with the relative proportion of PPG-Private Creditor debt. A key policy takeaway from these findings is that reducing reliance on expensive private market borrowing in favor of official bilateral and multilateral financing is essential for debt sustainability in developing economies.</p>