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Table of Contents

• ↓ Building Capacity and providing services for countries in debt
• ↓ Harare – 17 April - AFRODAD Webinar on Domestic Debt
• ↓ 10 July – Paris – DFI Education and Debt Publications Launched
• ↓ London, Bristol and Africa - 9 July – Debt, Inequality and Public Services
• ↓ London - 6 July - Building Narratives for Global Change
• ↓ 3 July – Debt Justice Norway Podcast - Tackling Crises in Troubling Times
• ↓ Top Alternatives to development-finance.org

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"DFI’s mission is to help governments, international organisations, CSOs, parliaments, trade unions to mobilise the best development finance and use it to fight poverty and inequality."

"DFI spoke in a webinar on domestic debt in Africa organised by AFRODAD. Drawing on the Debt Watch database, he showed how domestic debt service has risen from 20% to 42% of budget revenue in Africa between 2017 and 2026, and is now more than education and health spending combined in 42 African countries. This rise is because African leaders and the international community have largely ignored domestic debt service in their judgements on whether debt is sustainable, and indeed pushed countries to borrow domestically in the absence of sufficient external funding to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Tackling this problem will require reforms to the international financial architecture but also actions by African governments to reduce their borrowing costs and where necessary pay down or restructure debt. The webinar was one of the first steps in a joint project between AFRODAD, DFI and other stakeholders which will analyse the domestic debt crisis in G77 countries and how to overcome it, which will produce a report by the time of the IMF/World Bank Annual Meetings in October."

"DFI wrote three reports on debt and education for the UNESCO SDG4 Steering Committee in 2025, one on Breaking the Debt Trap: Restoring Fiscal Space to Save Education, a second on Turning debt into education investment: the catalytic potential of debt-for-education swaps? and a third on Turning debt into education investment: a Technical guide for effective debt-for-education swaps.  The papers were launched at the recent UNESCO Transforming Education Summit +4 in Paris. The first paper emphasises the degree to which debt service is crowding out education more than any other sector of government spending, and what can be done about it. The second analyses whether debt for education swaps have the potential to mobilise far more resources for education investment, and concludes that the scope for such swaps is increasingly limited, but they can catalyse more funding if they are very carefully designed. The third sets out a comprehensive set of guidelines for countries to work out whether debt swaps are feasible or desirable, and for designing debt-for-education swaps which can free maximum fiscal space, catalyse additional investment, and produce the strongest results for education. You can find all three papers at UNESCO’s debt and education hub here."

"DFI and its partners (act-Church of Sweden, FELM, Norwegian Church Aid, Oxfam and Save the Children), together with AFRODAD, held the first online bilingual webinar for African partner organisations in the phase 2 Commitment to Reducing Inequality project. Its aim was to strengthen their capacity to advocate on debt and its links to public services and inequality. Across Africa, rising debt service is placing extreme pressure on government budgets, cutting investment in the education, health and social protection spending which is essential to reduce inequality. Extreme debt burdens are also exacerbating inequality, because creditors are generally wealthy, while the citizens of poorer countries who pay the costs in spending cuts are the poorest. The webinar introduced participants to the Debt Watch database and showed them how to use it and CRI spending numbers to analyse debt issues. They identified key messages for advocacy in their own countries, sub-regions and across the continent. AFRODAD led a session on what global, regional and national changes in debt policy and institutions need to be advocated to resolve the current debt crisis and prevent a recurrence of future crisis. The next webinar will be on 5 August and will focus on how to advocate for inequality reduction in countries with difficult political situations and limited civil society space."

Key Topics & Focus Areas for development-finance.org:

Building Capacity and providing services for countries in debt

Harare – 17 April - AFRODAD Webinar on Domestic Debt

10 July – Paris – DFI Education and Debt Publications Launched

London, Bristol and Africa - 9 July – Debt, Inequality and Public Services

London - 6 July - Building Narratives for Global Change

3 July – Debt Justice Norway Podcast - Tackling Crises in Troubling Times