Notícias Gerais
5 May -Oslo - Debt Relief Could Allow G77 to Double Social, Climate, Nature Spending
DFI is today launching a report submitted to the UN Secretary General, showing the amount which debt relief could contribute to filling the SDG financing gap. Using the Debt Watch database, which contains projections of public debt service for almost all G77 countries, DFI has simulated scenarios for debt relief and borrowing cost reductions which match the proposals made by the UN Secretary General, the Jubilee debt relief campaign and the South African G20 presidency.
The report can be found here. It finds that G77 countries are paying US$8.8 billion in debt service in 2026. These measures could save G77 countries US$3.4 trillion a year. Even in a more likely scenario where eligibility for debt relief and cost reduction is restricted by creditors, the contribution would be in the hundreds of billions. At the level of individual countries, it would allow poorer G77 members to meet their SDG financing gaps and double their spending on all the social and environmental SDGs including climate.
DFI will soon be examining in more detail how this relief can be delivered, with a view to making clear and affordable proposals for the UK presidency of the G20 and G7 in 2027.
May-December 2025 (ongoing) - Eastern and Southern Africa Regional and National CRI reports
Building on the successful launch of the Eastern and Southern Africa regional report on Commitment to Reducing Inequality in April at the IMF/WB Spring Meetings, DFI and its partners (the All Africa Conference of Churches, ACT-Church of Sweden, FELM-FInland, Norwegian Church Aid, Oxfam and Save the Children) have been continuing to roll out the report, as well as more detailed country profiles of 13 countries which present the practical policy options for reducing inequality in much more detail. The regional report was relaunched at the SADC People’s Summit and Festival in Antsirabe, Madagascar on 16 August. The SADC presentation is available on request from DFI, and the regional report here. Launches led by national anti-inequality coalitions have taken place in Malawi, Nepal, Tanzania, Zambia; and are planned soon in Angola, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Mozambique, Namibia, Somalia, South Sudan, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
20 October – Washington - DFI Paper on Integrating Inequality Reduction into DSAs
The Friedrich Ebert Stiftung commissioned DFI to write a paper on how to integrate inequality reduction into IMF/World Bank debt sustainability. The paper presents a detailed, practical and feasible approach. It establishes the case for including inequality reduction in DSAs, then shows how to 1) identify eligible countries; 2) estimate spending needs and their inequality impacts; and 3) calculate multiplier effects on growth and tax revenues. The paper also identifies areas where more work is needed, especially in analyzing the impact of non-fiscal policies on inequality reduction, so they can be incorporated into forecasts. It shows that the BWIs can easily include an anti-inequality module in current reviews of the Low-Income Countries Debt Sustainability Framework (LIC-DSF), and in the Staff Guidance Note and tools for the Sovereign Risk and Debt Sustainability Framework (SRDSF), similar to their existing climate modules. The paper argues that these reviews should emphasize the high positive multipliers SDG spending can have on growth and, if concessionally funded, SDG 10 can be reached without compromising debt sustainability.
16 October – Washington - DFI Participates in Technical Meeting on UNCTAD Borrowers’ Club
DFI was invited to a technical meeting of experts, to advise on the technical preparations for the UNCTAD Borrowers’ Club, which was mandated in the Compromiso de Sevilla of the Financing for Development conference in July 2025. The meeting was held inthe sidelines of the IMF-World Bank meetings in Washington and followed a meeting of developing country ministers on 15 October which strongly endorsed the creation of a Borrowers’ Club. DFI has already been advising UNCTADs pilot phase of the Club for a year and presented suggestions arising from the positive lessons of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries’ Finance Ministers’ Network (1998-2014) as well as the OIF Lower-Income Francophone Finance Ministers’ Network (2014-2020). The meeting made clear that the Club will be governed and led by ministers of the participating countries and is intended to reinforce country voice and capacity at ministerial and technical level, through ministerial meetings, inter-regional workshops and information exchange, and South-South capacity-building.
12 October – Washington – ONE/Experts Letter Advocates one of DFI’s Key Suggestions
24 top global economic experts have published an open letter defining their top priorities to resolve the current global South debt crisis. The experts were the members of the three major global commissions which reported on how to resolve the debt crisis in 2024: the Jubilee Commission, the UNSG’s Expert Review, and Healthy Debt on a Healthy Planet. Their headline recommendation was that all debt relief deals should aim to reduce debt service burdens to 10% of budget revenue, a policy position DFI has been suggesting since 2022. The letter was coordinated by the ONE campaign and covered in the Guardian on 12 October.
- Washington - Debt Service Watch 2025 Briefing and Database Released
- 30 September – Regional Workshop on the Cost of Debt in LAC and the 2025 Jubilee
- 17 July – Durban - Oxfam Africa Inequality Briefing Launched to G20 Finance Ministers
- 19 April -Tackling Extreme Inequality at Its Epicentre – a Policy Agenda for Eastern and Southern Africa
