Did the IMF Annuals in 2022 deliver on providing sustainable solutions to the ongoing debt crises?

Publish Date: 
Tuesday, December 6, 2022

Yes and No. While deepening collaboration between ESCR-Net and a growing set of allies working on debt advocacy was a small win for members,  the advocacy efforts, unfortunately, yielded few immediate wins for communities around the world, with the annuals ending without any tangible solutions and the International Monetary Fund and other creditors refusing to compromise. The debt crises are expected to spiral as more and more countries are poised to default. There is an urgent need for countries to mobilize and push for debt cancellation and other forms of relief, including Collective Action Clauses into their bond contracts.

 

ESCR-Net joined other civil society organizations and allies at the just concluded 2022 International Monetary Fund/World Bank Annual meetings in Washington DC, October 10-16, 2022 to amplify our demands for debt cancellation for impoverished countries. These meetings happened at a time when the world is facing dire economic, public health, climate and debt crises, foremost impacting impoverished countries. Despite ongoing advocacy confronting their history of problematic policies, the IMF continued with their neoliberal narrative and assertion that the times are tough, but countries in debt, especially impoverished and developing countries, must pay their debts.

ESCR-Net and Asia Peoples Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD) developed a collective statement and launched it during the Global Week of Action for Debt Cancellation and Justice, with key demands to the IMF which attracted more than 300 signatures around the world. In the Statement, members emphasized on the need to cancel illegitimate and unsustainable debts which have their origins rooted in histories of colonialism and imperialism. 

At the advent of the pandemic, ESCR-Net members collectively developed a Global Call to Action articulating a series of demands for a just, equitable and sustainable recovery process that centers human rights and focuses on transforming unjust economic and social structures, policies and institutions, including via debt cancellation. Additionally, members have developed concrete case studies that look at the impact of debt and the realization of human rights as well as crafting a collective set of demands that has continued to inform our advocacy with the IMF.   

Building on our advocacy in the lead up to the IMF, ESCR-Net also joined allies in bringing our demands directly to International Monetary Fund management and State representatives during the annuals.  The two sessions in Washington DC in October 2022 aimed at amplifying calls for sustainable debt solutions. At the Civil Society Policy Forum (CSPF) event, a formal mechanism through which civil society organizations contribute to economic policy discussions during the International Monetary Fund/World Bank annuals, members discussed the need for an urgent international financial architecture reform in order to resolve debt crises, putting forward a range of proposals and related implementation while centering human rights and sustainability as key to the process. A second space allowed a core group of CSOs, as well as academics, to raise key demands and proposals with IMF and World Bank management and State representatives. 

While deepening collaboration between ESCR-Net and a growing set of allies working on debt advocacy was a small win for members,  these advocacy efforts, unfortunately, yielded few immediate wins for communities around the world, with the annuals ending without any tangible solutions and the International Monetary Fund and other creditors refusing to compromise. The debt crises are expected to spiral as more and more countries are poised to default. There is an urgent need for countries to mobilize and push for debt cancellation and other forms of relief, including Collective Action Clauses into their bond contracts. This could allow countries to halt debt repayments in cases of economic crises and catastrophes. That can allow them to suspend or stop paying interest on debts in the case of pandemics or other crises.

 

Next steps

To support a growing set of members and allies in taking up collective advocacy, the Economic Policy Working Group of the ESCR-Net will also be working on a series of tools in the coming period - the comic on debt and corporate capture, political glossary of terms and dedicated spaces, including a likely systemic critique workshop, to continue to deepen analysis of the history, structural causes and uses of debt, as we build strategies of resistance and advance peoples' solutions for more transformative change.