G24 communiqué analysis Spring Meetings 2026
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Article summary
The Intergovernmental Group of Twenty-Four represents a bloc of major emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs), including India, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa. At this year’s Spring Meetings, the Group highlighted the severe fallout of US and Israel war on Iran and Lebanon amid constraints facing EMDEs, including tight fiscal space and high debt, but fell short on translating the diversity of its membership into a coherent shared vision for addressing the structural drivers of the crises it identifies.
The Intergovernmental Group of Twenty-Four (G24) released its communiqué for the 2026 IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings on 14 April, expressing “deep concern about multiple political crises and conflicts around the world” and regret over “the tragic loss of innocent lives.”
The Group noted the war on the Middle East has “taken a significant toll on an already weak global economy, with particularly devastating effects” on emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs). Against the backdrop of the IMF’s World Economic Outlook – which projects EMDEs growth slowing to 3.9 per cent in 2026 and 4.2 per cent in 2027 – the G24 argued that if the disruption is sustained, “core and non-core inflation could increase, driven by higher energy, food, and fertilizer prices, as well as rising supply chain costs.” In a context of rising interest rates and borrowing costs, Nigerian Finance Minister and Chair of the G-24 coalition of developing countries, Olawale Edun, said the IMF and the World Bank need to do more to support EDMEs weather the economic shocks, including by providing “particularly at this time, additional liquidity risk management tools that bring down the cost of financing.”
At a time of weakening confidence in multilateralism, the G24 called for “a rules-based international system, grounded in respect for national sovereignty and the principles of the UN Charter.” Yet how this will be achieved in practice remains unclear, as the G24 once again struggled to align its diverse membership into a clear shared vision for addressing the structural drivers of the crises it describes.
Debt and structural constraints
With developing economies facing foreign debt repayments burdens at record levels, the G24, “welcomes progress in the implementation of the G20 Common Framework (CF) for Debt Treatments beyond the Debt Service Suspension Initiative, as well as the Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable,” and supports “additional reforms to the international debt architecture to promote sustainable debt management practices, enhance debt transparency, and improve country-risk assessments by credit rating agencies.” It however does not specify what these reforms would mean in practice, and avoids engaging with more transformative proposals from civil society and some Global South states, including large-scale debt cancellation and a UN debt workout mechanism (see Observer Winter 2025).
While previous G24 communiqués framed resource mobilisation primarily as a domestic issue (see Dispatch Springs 2025), this year’s text makes a partial shift, noting that “traditional approaches such as contracting domestic demand or allowing currency depreciation may prove insufficient for absorbing the shocks and addressing the challenges posed by deteriorating external conditions”. This seems to signal recognition of the limits of the IMF’s long-standing emphasis on domestic fiscal consolidation as a means for revenue mobilisation.
On tax, the Group reiterated the importance of reforming international tax rules and practices, including those related to profit shifting and illicit financial flows, which “deprive developing countries of much needed revenue.” It noted progress on both the United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation and called for outcomes that deliver “meaningful and sustainable revenues.”
IMF: calls for temporary liquidity shortfall
Unlike high-income economy, EDMEs have limited tools to respond to external shocks because high servicing costs on foreign-currency debt continue to drain export revenues, constraining investment in essential public goods. The Group reiterated its calls for regular allocations of Special Drawing Rights to strengthen liquidity for EMDEs and provide much needed breathing room. It also “call[ed] for an early review of the charges and surcharges policy, the Resilience and Sustainability Trust, and the Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust,” and expressed support for gold sales. These positions align with long-standing civil society demands to ease financing pressures in the context of polycrises.
As the Fund undergoes key reviews – including the Review of Conditionality (ROC) and the Comprehensive Surveillance Review (CSR) – the G24 noted it looks forward to their outcomes, adding, in relation to the CSR, that “rigorous and evenhanded surveillance should be applied to all members.” This reflects long-standing concerns raised by civil society, and recently the IMF’s Independent Evaluation Office, which highlighted that surveillance is shaped by political pressures and applied unevenly, with austerity and stricter assessments placed on lower-income countries, while advanced economies receive more lenient treatment. Yet the G24 does not extend this into a broader engagement with how these reviews could reshape IMF policy advice, including shifting the Fund away from procyclical adjustment and austerity that reinforce dependence and extractivism (see Observer Summer 2025).
World Bank: industrial policy amid constrained fiscal and policy space
On the World Bank side, the Group supported its vision of job creation and welcomed the “recognition of industrial policy as a legitimate policy tool for developing countries.” This is a node to the recent shift in internal Bank thinking, including acknowledgement from Chief Economist Indermit Gill that Washington Consensus–era advice “has not aged well” and holds “the practical value of a floppy disk.” Yet the G24 did not extend this recognition into the structural requirements of effective industrial policy, particularly policy and fiscal space. Combined with the Bank’s continued emphasis on private capital mobilisation and domestic resource mobilisation, this suggests continued constraints on public-led development strategies.
Although the Group made, once again, no reference to gender, it is notable that – amid growing pressure on the Bank from the US to scale back its climate-related work and ongoing uncertainty over the future of its climate agenda – the G24 reaffirmed that “commitment to accelerate implementation, and cooperation to address the impact of climate change should not diminish and should continue to be guided by the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, as enshrined in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Paris Agreement.” It further stressed that enabling a just transition requires “especially grant financing” and “technology transfer,” echoing long-standing civil society demands.
