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A new proposal urges a fresh approach to debt refinancing for low-income countries, using tools such as concessional finance, special drawing rights, and even selling off the IMF’s stash of gold.
Also in today’s edition: COP31 finally has a host country, and we interview Matthew Crentsil, the only African candidate to lead UNHCR.
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The Group of 20 leading economies has been handed a bold new pitch: a “fresh debt-refinancing initiative” to help low-income countries escape crushing borrowing costs. The plan, unveiled in Johannesburg, South Africa, calls for refinancing rather than rescheduling — tapping tools such as concessional resources, special drawing rights, and even selling some of the IMF’s 90 million ounces of gold. As the proposal puts it: “At this global crossroads, African and G20 leaders must choose which path they will take. … Business as usual. Or a new partnership with Africa.”
This year alone, African countries will pay nearly $89 billion in debt servicing, my colleague Elissa Miolene writes, which leaves over half of the continent’s nations spending more on interest than on education or health. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the recommendations would create “significant impetus” for Africa to mobilize “the resources that it needs to develop and to grow.”
Experts say the ideas are doable but warn that lower-income nations may still need deeper restructuring.
Experts at the Boston University Global Development Policy Center found in their recent analysis that selling just 10% of the International Monetary Fund’s gold reserves would generate enough funds to offset this year’s cuts to foreign aid. “The selling of IMF gold reserves has precedence, it is impactful, it can make a huge difference, and it can be done again,” said Eric LeCompte of the Jubilee USA Network.
The proposal also calls for a “borrowers’ club” — described as “a coalition of the willing” — to give African countries more leverage, and for overhauling the G20 Common Framework, whose progress so far it describes as “poor” and its results, “meagre.”
Read: G20 panel calls for a new debt-refinancing plan for low-income nations
Background reading: How Africa’s schools and hospitals are paying the price of IMF austerity
Watch: Experts press G20 to make debt relief faster and fairer (Pro)
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Before heads of state arrive for the G20 Leaders’ Summit this weekend, civil society delegates are having their say during the week in talks meant to culminate in the G20 Social Summit Leaders’ Declaration.
The events spanned a wide spectrum, from using spirituality to inspire climate justice to regulating artificial intelligence in mental health tools. Attendees discussed five core themes: digital inclusion; trade and resilient value chains; just energy transitions; sustainable financing; and work to achieve both the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals and the African Union’s Agenda 2063 — its 50-year blueprint to transform the continent.
The resulting document will be presented to Ramaphosa today.
“When the social contract weakens, society doesn’t break all at once. It unthreads quietly, one family, one community, one worker at a time,” said Ahunna Eziakonwa, assistant administrator and regional director for Africa at the U.N. Development Programme, from the social summit stage. “That is why this summit is not a side event to the G20. It is the moral centerpiece.”
Catch up on G20: Reporter’s notebook — Social Summit Day 2
Germany finally attached some numbers to its promised contribution to Brazil’s Tropical Forest Forever Facility — and, as announced yesterday, it’s a big one. Germany will give $1.1 billion to the World Bank-hosted investment fund, bringing it up to par with Indonesia’s and Brazil’s $1 billion contributions. That brings the total contributions so far, according to my colleague Jesse Chase-Lubitz’s math, to $6.6 billion. It’s a nice chunk of change, but still far shy of the $25 billion it’s hoping to garner from governments to encourage another $100 billion in investment from the private sector.
“With the TFFF, Brazil is taking a new, innovative approach, which we support,” Germany’s development minister, Reem Alabali Radovan, and environment minister, Carsten Schneider, wrote after the announcement.
Read: Germany commits €1 billion to flagship COP30 forest fund
After months of wrangling between Australia and Turkey over who would host the 31st U.N. Climate Change Conference in 2026, Turkey has emerged as the winner.
Turkey will host COP31 in the Mediterranean city of Antalya, Bloomberg reported. The news is not much of a surprise after Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese — who is not at the COP30 in Brazil — told a press conference Tuesday that Australia would not block anything if Turkey emerged as the winner.
Australia had been campaigning to host COP for years, and its success would have been seen as a win for the Pacific region, which is hit hard by climate change. “We acknowledge all the work that Pacific leaders did to try and bring COP to the Pacific, a region on the extreme frontlines of the climate crisis,” Suluafi Brianna Fruean, a Pacific council elder at 350.org, said in a statement. “With Australia hopefully still holding some role of leadership in the COP31 negotiations, we remain adamant that they rise to the occasion.”
Germany had been scrambling behind the scenes to help resolve the dispute between Australia and Turkey, given that if it wasn’t smoothed over, the meeting would have to be held in Bonn by default.
+ Before we jump to Turkey, what are the basics of Brazil’s COP that we should keep in mind? From advancing the Baku-to-Belém Roadmap to Brazil’s initiative to curb deforestation, my colleague Ayenat Mersie examines the critical conversations defining COP30 in her excellent video primer.
Debt is emerging at the forefront of many of this year’s major global gatherings — not just the G20 and COP30, but all the way back to the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, or FfD4, in Sevilla, Spain, a few months ago.
In fact, UNDP’s sustainable finance hub director, Tom Beloe, says he now feels as if the agendas emerging from FfD4 and COP focus on the same things: the “measures that unlock finance for developing economies,” he tells Jesse.
Sevilla centered on concessional finance and domestic resource mobilization, while Belém added reforms to “alleviate debt distress and strengthen the financials in line with climate.” For Beloe, that overlap is good news: It signals global processes are finally aligning rather than multiplying.
That alignment is also reshaping who sits at the table, he says. COPs remain dominated by environment ministries, he says, but FfD brought the finance ministries — and the two worlds are beginning to merge through initiatives such as the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action. “The more that these international processes come together and bring with them their constituency … the more that we can bring them together.”
Stay updated: COP30 reporters’ notebook — Day 10
For 75 years, Europeans have run the UN Refugee Agency. Matthew Crentsil — a Ghanaian national who runs UNHCR’s Uganda operation and the race’s only African candidate — says it’s time that changed. “It was logical then for it to be led by Europeans,” he tells my colleague Colum Lynch. But “the burden is more on the global south. … So leadership should also reflect this change in dynamic, in context.”
He’s a long shot: Diplomats expect U.N. chief António Guterres to pick another European, likely from a major donor. But Crentsil is leaning on his 31 years inside UNHCR. “You need a high commissioner who knows the ropes,” he tells Colum.
His pitch: focus on “durable solutions,” more integration, and regional resettlement — “something that has not been probably explored very much.” But he’s wary of more cuts. “We don’t have to cut our nose to spite our face,” he says. “They are here now. They need help. We need to support them.”
Watch the interview: Matthew Crentsil — a lone African seeks top UN refugee job
A landmark World Health Organization report warns that violence against women remains a “global public health emergency,” with nearly 1 in 3 women experiencing physical or sexual abuse. [The Telegraph]
U.S. President Donald Trump’s renewed rollback of climate policies could drive up to 1.3 million additional heat-related deaths worldwide. [The Guardian]
Oxfam says G20 billionaires earned $2.2 trillion last year as it urges leaders at the summit to back South Africa’s push for a global panel on inequality and fairer taxation. [AFP via Barron's]
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