Strengthening Global South Coordination on Debt Justice and the UN Framework Convention on Sovereign Debt
The Global South Debt Strategy Meeting and the Civil Society FfD4 Coordination Meeting were on the 21st to 22nd January 2026 and 23rd January 2026 respectively convened in Manila, Philippines, unifying debt justice actors to assess the evolving global financial landscape and agree on coordinated advocacy strategies. The meetings were co-convened by AFRODAD, LATINDAD, and APMDD, and included African regional partners. The central focus was to strengthen collective efforts toward advancing the UN Framework Convention on Sovereign Debt and intensifying campaigns for the cancellation of unsustainable and illegitimate debt.
The meetings were held in response to shifting geopolitical and economic realities following the Fourth UN Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4). Participants reflected on emerging threats to multilateralism, shrinking development assistance, increasing militarization, and weakening commitments made in Sevilla. A key strategic opportunity identified was Paragraph 50(f) of the FfD4 Outcome Document, which opens space for an intergovernmental process to address structural gaps in the international debt architecture over the next two years.
Key outcomes included agreement to intensify grassroots and national-level mobilization, particularly targeting Ministries of Finance, Parliaments, and UN representatives to build support for a formal UN resolution on the Debt Convention. There was also consensus on strengthening cross-movement alliances—linking debt advocacy with climate justice, tax justice, and trade union movements—to create a broader political base for debt reform. Regional groupings were encouraged to contextualize debt cancellation demands and give a human face to debt by linking it to lived socio-economic realities
From the FfD Coordination meeting, it was agreed that civil society must actively defend multilateralism and position debt justice within the broader geopolitical context of war, trade tensions, and aid retrenchment. The Mechanism will coordinate collective campaigns across major global advocacy spaces, including the UN General Assembly, COP31, and the IMF/WB Annual Meetings, with AFRODAD playing a leadership role in shaping the debt narrative and contributing analytical inputs linking debt, peace, and development debt-related advocacy and framing.
Comprehensively, the meetings strengthened strategic alignment among Global South partners and clarified the next phase of coordinated advocacy. For AFRODAD, the significance lies in consolidating African positioning within global debt reform debates, shaping a unified African framing on debt cancellation, and preparing for intensified mobilization toward establishing a fair and transparent international sovereign debt restructuring mechanism.