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<\/div>\n<\/div>\nOn the occasion of UNGA High-Level Week and the opening of the new General Assembly session, we, the\u00a0Civil Society Financing for Development Mechanism<\/a>, would like to share the attached letter concerning the critical follow-up to paragraph 50.f of the Sevilla Commitment and the agreed intergovernmental process on gaps in the international debt architecture. The letter<\/a> sets out our concerns regarding the current sovereign debt system and our views on how Member States can engage with the process ahead. We are now in the second year of implementation of the Sevilla Commitment and with countries facing mounting debt challenges it is urgent that this process gets underway.\u00a0<\/p>\n 21 September 2026<\/p>\n To the kind attention of: Permanent Representatives and Permanent Observers to the United Nations in New York United Nations Secretariat, Agencies and Programmes,<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Your Excellencies distinguished representatives of UN Member States, We trust this message finds you well. As the General Assembly begins a new session, we write to urge your country to lead and support actions to implement the Seville Commitment agreement to \u201cinitiate an intergovernmental process at the United Nations, with a view to make recommendations for closing gaps in the debt architecture and exploring options to address debt sustainability.\u201d (Para. 50.f)<\/p>\n In 2025 developing countries used, on average, 19 per cent of their revenue to service external debt – more than 45 per cent if we include both domestic and external debt service – squeezing budgets needed for health, education, social protection and climate action, among other priorities. The 2025 UNCTAD Report, A World of Debt, points out that more than 3.4 billion people are living in countries that spend more on interest payments than on essential public services such as health or education. These cuts disproportionately impact women and girls, who bear a disproportionate share of unpaid care responsibilities. According to UNDP, when a country moves from moderate to high debt servicing, 6,3 per cent of women lose their job and maternal deaths increase by 32.5 per cent. The impacts of the Middle East war and the worsening climate impacts – particularly given the upcoming super El Ni\u00f1o – will likely add to the scale and urgency of debt vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n While debt restructuring avenues exist, they have proved unable to offer reliable, orderly, sufficient, timely and comprehensive debt relief. As the UN Secretary General\u2019s Expert Group on Debt put it last year, three-quarters of the countries the IMF classifies as in or at high risk of debt distress have been stuck in this situation since 2018. Many countries avoid debt restructuring negotiations or defaulting by prioritising debt payments over compliance with the SDGs or their human rights obligations. This shouldn\u2019t be the path to follow for debtor countries, as this comes at a high cost for development progress. This turns out to be a trap even for creditors in the medium term, given that countries that go off the development track won\u2019t grow and will ultimately be unable to pay.<\/p>\n We strongly believe that the agreement reached at the Fourth Financing for Development Conference in Seville provides an opportunity to discuss this and other important gaps in the international financial architecture. All countries feature domestic bankruptcy institutions because it makes sense for the economy as a whole, without distinction between creditors and debtors. In the same vein, all countries stand to benefit from a democratic and rules-based global debt architecture that delivers timely, fair and durable solutions to countries with unsustainable and illegitimate debts. Taxpayers, consumers, workers, business, retail investors and residents in creditor countries, as well as the global economic and financial system, stand to benefit from reforms to build a fairer and more orderly debt architecture as much as debtor countries will.<\/p>\n We are concerned that some Member States disassociated themselves from paragraph 50.f \u2013 even after forcefully advocating for the inclusion of language that the adopted paragraph reflects \u2013 those same members are today insisting on the integrity of a \u201cSevilla Commitment\u201d that they voted for in its entirety. We ask these Member States to reconsider their opposition and see 50.f for what it is: the basis of an inclusive and open process to discuss fundamental features of the debt and financial system we have today, away from creditor-dominated forums.<\/p>\n Thank you in advance for considering this request.<\/p>\n Signed by<\/p>\n Civil Society Financing for Development Mechanism<\/p>\n Global<\/span><\/strong> Regional<\/strong><\/span> National<\/strong><\/span> The letter sets out our concerns regarding the current sovereign debt system and our views on how Member State […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":356,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.janic.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.janic.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.janic.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.janic.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/356"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.janic.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2422"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.janic.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2425,"href":"https:\/\/www.janic.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2422\/revisions\/2425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.janic.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.janic.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.janic.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/div>\n
-ActionAid International \/ Global
-Center for Economic and Social Rights \/ Global
-Caritas Internationalis \/ Vatican City State
-Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP)\u00a0 \/ Global
-International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights- ESCR-Net\u00a0 \/ Global
-Oil Change International \/ International
-Oxfam \/ Global
-Partners In Health \/ International
-RIPESS (Intercontinental Network
for the Promotion of Social Solidarity Economy) \/ International
-Save the Children \/ International
-Society for International Development \/ International
-Third World Network \/ International<\/p>\n
-African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD)\u00a0 \/ Africa
-African Women\u2019s Development and Communications Network (FEMNET)\u00a0 \/ Africa
-European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad) \/ Europe
-Global Policy Forum Europe \/ Europe
-Red Latinoamericana y del Caribe por Justicia Econ\u00f3mica, Social y Clim\u00e1tica (LATINDADD) \/ Latin America
-MenaFem Movement for Economic Development and Ecological Justice \/ SWANA<\/p>\n
-GMAF Grupo de Mujeres de la Argentina Foro de VIH Mujeres y Familia \/ Argentina
-Koordinierungsstelle der \u00d6sterreichischen Bischofskonferenz f\u00fcr internationale Zusammenarbeit und Weltkirche (KOO)\u00a0 \/ Austria
-Candid Concepts Development \/ Bahamas
-McGill Youth Advisory Delegation \/ Canada
-SEDRA \/ Chile
-Action pour les Femmes et Enfants Marginalis\u00e9s AFEMA-RDC \/ DR Congo
-Organisation Paysanne pour le D\u00e9veloppement Durable \/ DR Congo
-ASSO (Association for Agricultural, Educational and Health Development of Manono) \/ DR Congo
-Syndicat Chr\u00e9tien des Travailleurs du Congo \/ DR Congo
-Center for Egyptian Women Legal Assistance \/ Egypt
-CCFD-Terre Solidaire \/ France
-Make Mothers Matter (MMM) \/ France
-erlassjahr.de \u2013 Entwicklung braucht Entschuldung e.V. \/ Germany
-German NGO Forum on Environment & Development \/ Germany
-Japan NGO Center for International Cooperation (JANIC)\u00a0 \/ Japan<\/strong>
-Dibeen For Environmental Development \/ Jordan
-Kisumu Social Rights Association (KISORA) \/ Kenya
-The Kenya Human Rights Commission \/ Kenya
-Barwaqa Relief Organization \/ Kenya
-Medical Impact \/ Mexico
-Noble Delta Women for Peace and Development Intl \/ Nigeria
-Quest For Growth and Development Foundation \/ Nigeria
-Debt Justice Norway \/ Norway
-ISIZIBA Community Based Organizations of South Africa \/ South Africa
-Coordinadora Andaluza de ONGD (CAONGD) \/ Spain
-COORDINADORA VALENCIANA DE ONGD \/ Spain
-Entreculturas \/ Spain
-La Coordinadora de Organizaciones para el Desarrollo \/ Spain
-Free Trade Union Development Centre \/ Sri Lanka
-NAFSO \/ Sri Lanka
-ACTION 237-SUISSE \/ Suisse
-Act Church of Sweden \/ Sweden
-SAHRiNGON Tanzania Chapter \/ Tanzania
-NGO: ADET \/ Togo
-Observatoire Tunisien de l\u2019Economie \/ Tunisia
-Africa Freedom of Information Centre (AFIC) \/ Uganda
-Debt Justice UK \/ United Kingdom
-Treatment Action Group (TAG) \/ United States
-Feminist Task Force (FTF) & Women\u2019s Working Group on FfD United States
ANERT \/ Uruguay
-Global Ecovillage Network \/ United States
-Jubilee USA \/ United States
-The Society for Children Orphaned By AIDS Inc. (SOCOBA) \/ United States<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"