Senior Officials of 12 OIF LICs and LMICs and 4 regional organisations, as well as representatives of Francophone parliamentarians and civil society organisations, held a workshop in Kigali during 10-13 December to discuss their countries’ debt problems and identify urgent advocacy and capacity-building steps to reduce them. The workshop was hosted by the Government of Rwanda, and facilitated by DFI and OIF, with inputs from Afrodad, Cleary Gottlieb, the Commonwealth Secretariat, Eurodad, the IMF, UNCTAD, and the World Bank.  The workshop identified the top priority needs of countries on designing debt policies and strategies; transparency and accountability; mobilising new external finance; domestic and regional market borrowing; and debt restructuring and renegotiation. These needs will be communicated to all participating organisations at a senior level to ensure Francophone countries benefit from the maximum assistance. Participants also agreed on a series of advocacy points about changes needed in the international system to help them avoid or resolve debt crisis, which will be discussed with global leaders during 2020.

DFI presented on a panel on How to Do Debt Relief Better at the UNCTAD Debt Management conference in Geneva on 19 November. The presentation covered two key issues: why more debt relief is needed; and how to do it better than in the past. DFI urged that debt relief should build on the principles established by the HIPC initiative, but also: be based on SDG funding needs; comprehensively include all types of creditors (including bondholders, China, PPP funders and domestic creditors); and occur more rapidly and with less conditionality. To read the presentation, click here.