Civil society organisations (CSOs) are dissatisfied with the inaction of G20 finance ministers, the
IMF, and the World Bank in addressing the global debt crisis.
This comes as the Global South faces short-term liquidity challenges, forcing them to default on
human rights, SDGs, and climate commitments due to unsustainable debt payments.
Debt servicing consumes 42% of global spending, with 55% in Africa. This is 2.7 times the
expenditure on education, 4.2 times on health, and 11 times on social protection. Recent debt
relief agreements remain inadequate, with six nations that have undergone restructuring still set
to spend over 20% of their government revenue on external debt service.
CSOs propose cancelling sufficient debt to enable sustainable development and reforming the
global debt architecture as the clear solution.
