Sovereign Debt: Towards a Global South Debtors’ Club

The Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ) asserts that current debt restructuring mechanisms, such as the G20’s Common Framework, are insufficient because they treat indebtedness as a liquidity issue rather than a structural result of colonial legacies and trade imbalances. The paper advocates for a Global South Debtors’ Coalition to coordinate negotiations and collective economic planning, focusing on food sovereignty, energy independence, and industrial policy. It proposes a "Bargain of the Century" to leverage the Global South's resources and market size to secure fairer trade and technology transfers, particularly during South Africa's G20 Presidency.

• Current debt restructuring mechanisms, including the G20’s Common Framework and the Debt Service Suspension Initiative, are viewed as failures because they address liquidity rather than the structural causes of debt, such as resource extraction and trade imbalances.
• Sovereign debt is characterized as a mechanism of neocolonial control used by international financial institutions and creditor nations to maintain economic hierarchies and keep the Global South focused on low-value production and resource extraction.
• The paper proposes a Global South Debtors’ Coalition to pursue a "Bargain of the Century," leveraging collective market size, labour, and natural resources to demand technology transfers, fairer trade, and investment, centered on priorities of energy independence, food sovereignty, and industrial policy.

APA

iej_admin (2025). Sovereign Debt: Towards a Global South Debtors’ Club. Institute for Economic Justice. https://iej.org.za/resource/working-paper/sovereign-debt-towards-a-global-south-debtors-club/

Chicago

iej_admin. Sovereign Debt: Towards a Global South Debtors’ Club. Institute for Economic Justice, 2025. https://iej.org.za/resource/working-paper/sovereign-debt-towards-a-global-south-debtors-club/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=iej_admin |title=Sovereign Debt: Towards a Global South Debtors’ Club |publisher=Institute for Economic Justice |date=21 April 2025 |url=https://iej.org.za/resource/working-paper/sovereign-debt-towards-a-global-south-debtors-club/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{iejadmin2025sovereign, author = {iej\_admin}, title = {{Sovereign Debt: Towards a Global South Debtors’ Club}}, institution = {Institute for Economic Justice}, year = {2025}, month = apr, url = {https://iej.org.za/resource/working-paper/sovereign-debt-towards-a-global-south-debtors-club/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }