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Navigating Uncertainty: Debt Relief and Reform at the 2025 WBG/IMF Spring Meetings
April 30, 2025
The 2025 IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings took place against a backdrop of deepening financial instability, with emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) facing mounting debt, shrinking fiscal space, and rising trade tensions. Despite urgent calls for comprehensive debt relief, IMF policy advice continues to emphasize fiscal tightening – overlooking the reality that many countries cannot stabilize their finances without meaningful debt restructuring and more affordable borrowing costs.
One major gap at this year’s Meetings was the failure to meaningfully link debt and fiscal challenges with the escalating risks of climate change. In a world where climate impacts are increasingly recognized as macro-critical, integrating climate risks into debt sustainability assessments is not optional – it is essential.
Read our full assessment of the outcomes of the 2025 IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings here.
2025 World Bank Group and IMF Spring Meetings: Sovereign Debt, Global Shocks & the Path Forward
April 17, 2025
As the 2025 World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund (IMF) Spring Meetings get underway, the world faces a shifting global landscape – marked by rising geopolitical tensions, shrinking development finance, and growing trade barriers. Low- and middle-income countries, already hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and global inflation, are now under new pressure from U.S. tariffs targeting export-reliant economies.
On April 23, the DRGR Project will host a side event exploring what this means for countries with high debt burdens. Join Indermit Gill, Penelope Hakwins, HE Yemi Osinbajo and others for a timely discussion here.
Meanwhile, bilateral aid cuts are straining essential services and deepening vulnerabilities across the Global South. Yet, amid these compounding crises, momentum for meaningful reform is building.
The Tide is Turning: Prominent Voices Call for Debt Relief
December 16, 2024
A growing number of influential voices, such as Indermit Gill, Chief Economist at the World Bank, and Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa are signaling a significant shift in the global discourse on debt. The focus is moving away from short-term liquidity fixes towards a growing recognition that comprehensive debt relief is essential for sustainable development and climate action.
The pressing reality, laid bare in the World Bank’s latest “International Debt Report”, is that comprehensive debt relief is imperative for a large number of highly indebted nations. Gill does not mince words in the report’s foreword: The financing system is broken, he says, because “multilateral institutions and sovereign creditors bear almost all the risk, while private creditors reap almost all the rewards”.
Gill’s recognition of this urgency is shared by an increasing number of influential voices from Africa, with this call for comprehensive debt relief gaining momentum. It’s a potential turning point in global financial reform, that should be seized in 2025. Dive into the full blog to explore the solutions that are emerging from voices such as Tinubu, Rampahosa, and Sobel.
