New Borrowers' Platform

Developing countries have launched a new Borrowers’ Platform to coordinate on debt, with Egypt leading the process and the United Nations trade agency serving as secretariat. (unctad.org) The platform was launched on April 15 in Washington during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Spring Meetings, which ran from April 13 to 18. Ahmed Kouchouk, Egypt’s finance minister, has been leading the working group that set up the initiative. (worldbank.org; unctad.org) UN Trade and Development, or UNCTAD, says the forum is meant to let borrowing countries share debt-management tactics, pool technical expertise and speak more collectively in global debt discussions. The launch in Washington drew representatives from 30 countries, including two prime ministers and 16 ministers and central bank governors. (unctad.org; unctad.org) The push comes after a run of higher borrowing costs and tighter budgets across the developing world. UNCTAD says developing countries’ external debt burden reached $11.7 trillion in 2024, and 54 countries with a combined population of 3.4 billion were spending more on debt service than on health or education. (unctad.org) UNCTAD also says 99 developing countries, or 73% of the total it tracks, lost fiscal space between 2018 and 2024 as interest payments absorbed a larger share of government revenue. In September 2025, 49% of countries eligible for concessional International Monetary Fund financing were in or at high risk of debt distress. (unctad.org) The platform was written into the Sevilla Commitment adopted at the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development in July 2025. A ministerial roundtable at the October 2025 IMF-World Bank annual meetings then set up a working group co-led by Egypt and Pakistan to turn that pledge into a formal structure. (unctad.org) Its backers are drawing a line between this forum and a debt workout table. UNCTAD says it is not a crisis-coordination mechanism, not a forum for collective debt-restructuring negotiations and not a standard-setting body; it is a voluntary space for peer learning, technical support and joint advocacy. (unctad.org) That distinction reflects how sovereign debt talks usually work now: creditors have formal clubs and coordination channels, while borrowers mostly negotiate country by country. The communiqué from the launch says existing mechanisms remain mainly creditor-driven and insufficiently responsive to borrowers’ collective needs. (unctad.org) African officials have tied that argument to a broader shift away from donor-led models. Africa.com, in an April 8 opinion article by Olive Shisana and Elhadj As Sy, cited OECD data showing aid to low- and middle-income countries had fallen in real terms for two straight years, while OECD preliminary data showed total official development assistance fell 7.1% in 2024 from 2023. (africa.com; oecd.org) The next step is to widen participation and draft a work program before the IMF-World Bank annual meetings in October 2026. For now, the new forum gives debtor governments a regular room of their own inside a system that has long organized itself around creditors. (unctad.org)