Opinion: The Borrowers’ Platform Gives Debtor Nations a Seat at the Table (Finally)

A fairer financial architecture is needed to address the global debt crisis 

by Prof. Mthuli Ncube

Apart from climate change and artificial intelligence, the world has a third momentous issue which needs to be addressed urgently.

The debt crisis has crept up stealthily, but inexorably. The scale is enormous: developing countries’ aggregate external sovereign debt reached $12.3 trillion in 2025. Their borrowings are supposed to finance social and economic upliftment, infrastructure and climate resilience. Yet for many countries, financing intended to develop capacity ends up impinging on it.

By way of illustration, as at 2025, Zimbabwe’s external debt obligations equate to 29.7% of GDP. Total debt is equivalent to roughly 43% of GDP. This debt vulnerability is compounded by repayment arrears and limited access to much-needed tranches of fresh external financing, compromising the nation’s development programs.

Indeed, the developing world’s ability to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is being severely compromised. Already, the annual SDG spending shortfall is $4.3 trillion, and growing. Low- and middle-income countries paid $3.9 trillion in principal and interest repayments to foreign creditors over the period 2022–2024. For all developing countries, the annual debt servicing cost is now $1.6 trillion, which is 37% of the currently calculated SDG gap. The numbers are Sisyphean; their crushing weight mocks the concepts of sustainability and development.   

The harsh paradox of the debt trap has suffocated the prospects of generations of citizens in many parts of the world. Today, 54 countries, representing 3.4 billion people, must allocate more to service sovereign debt than to education or healthcare.  

The Borrowers’ Platform, launched in April 2026 with representatives from 30 countries, is an opportunity to catalyze significant change. The concept was recommended by the UN Secretary-General’s Expert Group on Debt in 2025, incorporated into last year’s Sevilla Commitment at the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4), and subsequently developed by a working group involving Egypt, Pakistan, Colombia, Honduras, the Maldives, Nepal and Zambia.

As the first multilateral initiative that specifically brings together ministers of finance or economy, central bank governors, and senior officials of developing countries, the Platform is now moving into the governance and implementation stages. Its first Governing Council meeting will take place on the margins of the World Bank and IMF annual meetings in Bangkok on 12 October.

Developing countries have long been calling for financial architecture reform. Indeed, ultimately the global debt crisis is not about too much debt. Wealthier nations are also indebted; America’s national debt, for instance, now exceeds $40 trillion, or 126% of its annual GDP. Rather, it is about imbalances in the world’s financial systems which historically created a rift in the spread of wealth, and now serve to widen the rift such that it is a perpetually growing chasm.

For decades, creditors have had established mechanisms for cooperating among themselves. The clearest examples are the Paris Club and the G20 Common Framework, which are groupings of the wealthy countries specifically formed to coordinate the approach to the sovereign debt owed by lower-income nations.

A wider lens on the global financial architecture must take in the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. These organisations are among the largest and most influential multilateral lenders, but their shareholdings and voting rights, leadership and executive boards are all significantly weighted towards the countries that founded the institutions and whose financial contributions are the largest. This means – despite an entirely different socioeconomic and geopolitical context compared to the 1944 establishment of these institutions – that the wealthier Global North dominates.  

The United Nations Trade and Development (UNCTAD) intergovernmental organization describes the existing architecture as creditor-driven and notes that mechanisms are insufficiently responsive to borrowers’ situations. Developing countries lack representation on key bodies and forums for information-sharing to improve debt management. The Borrowers’ Platform addresses this by creating an equivalent, permanent space in which to share knowledge and skills, and articulate the concerns of debtor countries.

A developing nation in debt distress faces highly coordinated creditors and complexities involving financial instruments, largely without any institutional backing. The result is an asymmetry of information and technical expertise. This disparity serves neither party. It prolongs financial distress, delays recovery, and all but guarantees disorderly defaults. Illustratively, 26 nations have been in debt distress since at least 2018, but only four of these have attempted restructuring in terms of the G20’s Common Framework.

The Platform will contribute to peer learning and strengthen the calibre and coordination of borrowers’ participation in the broader system. The ultimate objective is to enhance debt management and financing outcomes, thereby expanding the capacity and space for development. The win-win extends to lenders: better borrowers are also better for creditors because they reduce the likelihood of disorderly debt crises.

This matters precisely because further positive initiatives to address the debt crisis have recently been triggered by the G20, the World Bank, and the IMF. While these are welcome, they are subject to the same constraints and lender-dominated agendas of the existing financial architecture and systems. The Borrowers’ Platform sees these as complementary to its objective, not competing with it.  

Further, the current global environment of geopolitical tensions, wars, energy shocks, inflationary pressures and surging bond yields raises a fundamental question: can developing nations realistically grow their economies fast enough to service external debt while also improving the lives of their citizens? For a long while, there has been a need for a borrower-side organisation to balance the architecture of sovereign debt; now, the moment has arrived.  

The Platform represents the most significant move towards the developing world having a cross-regional counterpart to the Paris Club. Its impact now depends on broad participation by borrowing countries, and on how they build upon the momentum created by the Platform.

Can a platform designed to give borrowers greater knowledge and voice change the way the global debt system works, and trigger reforms appropriate to our times? Political will has been established and corralled. The test now is whether this can translate into practical capacity. Broader participation, coupled with UNCTAD as a strong secretariat anchored in a universally representative organisation, are key, promising success factors. However, the importance of sustained momentum at the political level in this member-state-led platform cannot be over-emphasised.

Improved debt management and action to reduce the debt crisis will benefit the entire financial ecosystem. Greater transparency, stronger data, and more sustainable borrowing practices can reduce uncertainty and send a much-needed positive signal to financial markets, regulatory institutions, and governments around the world.

Most importantly, for citizens of countries that have been marginalized from opportunity for too long, the Borrowers’ Platform signals impetus towards meaningful change.

Hon. Prof. Mthuli Ncube is the Zimbabwe Minister of Finance. He has previously served as chief economist and vice president of the African Development Bank.