Developing countries on 15 April launched the first-ever Borrowers’ Platform during the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington, unveiling what UN Secretary-General António Guterres described as “a breakthrough in global financing.”
The platform is designed to bring finance ministers and central bank governors from borrowing nations into a single forum to strengthen debt management capacity, improve coordination, and give the developing world a collective voice in global debt discussions. UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) will serve as Secretariat.
External debt across developing economies reached $11.7 trillion in 2024, with annual debt service costs running at roughly $920 billion. Fifty-four countries — home to 3.4 billion people — now spend more on servicing their debts than on health or education, the Platform’s launch materials noted, constraining public investment and pressuring growth plans.
Representatives from 30 countries attended the launch, including prime ministers, 16 ministers and central bank governors. A working group chaired by Egypt with Pakistan as Vice-Chair, and including Colombia, Honduras, the Maldives, Nepal and Zambia, will steer implementation through to the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings in October 2026.
UNCTAD currently runs the Debt Management and Financial Analysis System (DMFAS) used by 60 countries and will anchor the Platform’s technical work. Organisers said the initiative closes a long-standing gap in the international financial architecture, where creditor coordination mechanisms such as the G20 Common Framework have been established but borrowing countries have lacked an equivalent collective space.
The Platform was first outlined in the Sevilla Commitment adopted at the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development in July 2025. Member States at the launch agreed to expand participation, set interim governance arrangements and define a work programme ahead of the October meetings.
For Sri Lanka, which recently concluded combined staff-level agreements on its fifth and sixth IMF Extended Fund Facility reviews and is still completing external debt restructuring, the Platform adds a new forum outside the creditor-led process in which to coordinate with peer borrowers.
Source: Daily FT.
