Global financial leaders on Wednesday launched a blueprint for emerging-market debt restructurings, an effort to streamline a process that has grown increasingly lengthy and complex for some of the world’s poorest countries.

Officials from G-20 countries, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank laid out steps nations can take when their debt becomes unmanageable, including when to start talks with the IMF for loans. The so-called playbook, which was released during the Fund’s spring meetings in Washington, draws on some of the best practices from recent sovereign debt reworks.

The document shows how international financial institutions are seeking to bring fixes to a troubled system that has left some countries in restructuring limbo for years.

The IMF had taken a lead role in recent years after several developing nations defaulted, resulting in complicated restructuring talks between debtors and official bilateral creditors, particularly China, and private bondholders.