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Recognition Rising, Reform Pending: Insights from the 2025 IMF/World Bank Annual Meetings
October 24, 2025
The 2025 Annual Meetings of the IMF and World Bank Group took place against a backdrop of heightened global uncertainty. While recent data from the IMF suggests the world economy has shown resilience, this stability remains untested—and future shocks, from climate disruptions to trade tensions, loom large.
The numbers tell a sobering story: Inflation remains elevated, interest rates stubbornly high, and debt vulnerabilities widespread. While low-income countries may face declining debt levels—not because of progress, but because they lack access to finance altogether. Debt service remains at records level, squeezing fiscal space for critical investments in climate action and development.
The meetings highlighted a growing consensus: The global debt crisis is not just a financial issue—it’s a development emergency. Economists, civil society organizations, and policymakers alike demanded meaningful debt reform. Behind closed doors, officials increasingly recognize that countries are “defaulting on development”—failing to provide basic goods and services due to crippling debt burdens.
DRGR Round Up: 2025 IMF/World Bank Annual Meetings
October 14, 2025
As the 2025 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank unfold this week, anticipation and uncertainty are running high. Mounting criticism and political pressure — particularly from the United States — have led to a debate about the mandate of the Bretton Woods institutions, with calls to scale back their climate focus in favor of traditional economic stabilization roles.
At the same time, questions of fairness and consistency are resurfacing. The substantial support extended by the IMF and the U.S. Treasury to Argentina under President Milei stands in sharp contrast to the limited assistance offered to other heavily indebted countries still struggling to manage their crises alone.
These dynamics highlight deepening unease about the state of multilateralism and the ability of international financial institutions to respond equitably and effectively to the worsening debt distress across Emerging Markets and Developing Economies (EMDEs). Recent research from the DRGR Project has focused on the regions most exposed to this crisis: Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), Asia and the Pacific, and Africa.
Africa Climate Summit: New Policy Brief on Africa’s Vicious Cyle of Debt and Climate
September 09, 2025
Accelerating Global Climate Solutions: Financing for Africa’s Resilient and Green Development – this is the theme of the Second African Climate Summit now underway in Addis Ababa. The summit comes at a crucial moment, aiming to advance reforms that can scale up grant-based climate finance while strengthening national and local systems to effectively manage and deliver funds.
Africa contributes less than 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet it faces some of the harshest impacts of the climate crisis. Cyclones in Mozambique, drought in the Horn of Africa, and rising seas threatening cities from Lagos to Alexandria show the urgency of climate finance that is accessible, predictable, and geared toward resilience.
In a new policy brief, Alexander Dryden and Ulrich Volz highlight the vicious cycle many African countries are caught in: climate finance needs in Sub-Saharan Africa exceed US$1.4 trillion this decade, yet actual flows average only US$35 billion per year – more than half of which comes as debt rather than grants. In 2023, African governments devoted an average of 13 percent of total expenditure to debt service, double the level of 2012.
