Debt

Matthew Martin presents new debt database to IMF at a Civil Society Policy Forum event during the October 2023 Annual Meetings in Marrakech, Morocco. Credit: Iolanda Fresnillo/Eurodad

Finance

News

New data show Global South is in worst debt crisis ever, with another lost decade looming

Civil society alliances call to prioritise sustainability of life over debt, while IMF continues to insist situation is not "systemic", in contrast to what the UN Secretary General has called a "systemic failure".

13 December 2023
Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva holds a Caribbean Ministerial Roundtable on the Resilience and Sustainability Trust at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre, 17 June 2022. Credit: Kim Haughton/ IMF Photo

Environment

Background

What is the IMF Resilience and Sustainability Trust?

This Inside the Institutions looks at IMF’s Resilience and Sustainability Trust (RST) reflecting on concerns about its eligibility criteria, quota limit, and 'green conditions'.

13 December 2023 | Inside the institutions

Finance

News

New book addresses shortcomings of traditional approaches to debt and economics 

New book details the gendered effects of austerity and argues that the human rights of people living in debt-distressed countries must take precedence over creditors’ financial interests.

13 December 2023

Conditionality

News

Tunisian government resists proposed IMF austerity programme 

Tunisian government is attempting to renegotiate IMF loan to avoid subsidy cuts on food and fuel.

19 July 2023
International Human Rights Day protest Manila, 10 December 2020.

Finance

Analysis

Debt sustainability assessment reform essential to address retrogression of international human rights

Recent reports outlining the extensive negative human rights impacts of debt and austerity further evidence the urgency of the need for the IMF and World Bank to go beyond financial sustainability in debt sustainability analysis.

4 October 2023
Protest at COP27, celebrated in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt in November 2022. Credit: Oliver Kornblihtt / Mídia NINJA

Finance

Analysis

Assessing the Bretton Woods Institutions’ legacy

New collection of critical essays by authors from MENA and Sub-Saharan Africa do a retrospective of the BWIs involvement in the region, and the legacy of BWIs-supported unjust and extractionist world economic order.

3 October 2023 | Briefings

IFI governance

News

Marrakech CSO working group launches statement ahead of 2023 Annual Meetings

Marrakech working group calls on the BWIs to cancel the debt, stop imposing austerity and ensure a just energy transition.

19 July 2023

IFI governance

Analysis

The IMF at the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: The need for governance reform

As the world celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is time the IMF’s shareholders use the opportunities provided by the anniversary and growing calls for reforms to the international financial architecture to redesign the IMF’s governance structures and programmes to ensure they are consistent with the commitments outlined in 1948 and with international human rights law.

5 April 2023 | At Issue

Finance

Analysis

The global financial architecture and the international debt crisis: An urgent call for reform

Influence of unreformed international financial institutions and creditor interests in debt solutions in low- and middle-income countries plagued by delay and ineffective when undertaken.

5 April 2023 | At Issue

Finance

News

Between a rock and a hard place: How can IMF provide support amidst debt restructure deadlock?

IMF’s lending into arrears policy can be a way to break out of the debt restructure deadlock and provide the much-needed financing for countries in debt distress.

5 April 2023