A commission appointed by the late Pope Francis has released a new report highlighting the urgent need to address global debt, which has hindered sustainable development and climate action.
The report was authored by the Jubilee Commission, which includes a group of 30 experts including Nobel laureate and U.S. economist Joseph Stiglitz, and Martín Guzmán, a former economy minister of Argentina.
The commission found that 54 developing countries spend 10% or more of their tax revenues just to pay their debt interests. Since 2014, the average interest burden for developing countries has almost doubled. “Interest payments on public debt are therefore crowding out critical investments in health, education, infrastructure, and climate resilience,” the report says.
“The most afflicted continent is Africa, but other parts of the world … are also affected by the crisis [such as] in Latin America and in Asia,” Guzmán said at a press briefing.
Instead of moving toward sustainable development, the report says, the debt situation has become a barrier and is exacerbating inequality and discontent.
Before his death in April, Pope Francis declared 2025 as a Jubilee Year, or a year of hope and forgiveness. In a message, he called on wealthy countries to forgive the debts of poorer ones, not just as a form of generosity but as a “matter of justice.” He warned of an “ecological debt” that exists, “particularly between the global North and South,” due to “imbalances” and “the disproportionate use of natural resources by certain countries over long periods of time.”
The Jubilee Report highlights how rich countries have failed to provide assistance to developing countries as they’d promised, resulting in a gap in development financing, especially for addressing climate change.
“Instead of us being able to invest into our future, into our present, climate finance is coming in the form of loans and not grants, and that means that we go into debt even more to the country that has caused the climate crisis to address the climate impacts that they brought onto our countries,” Mitzi Jonelle Tan, global coordinator of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, said at the briefing.
The report identifies solutions to the crisis, including improving debt restructuring, ending bailouts to private creditors, strengthening domestic policies, enhancing transparency, and reimagining global finance to focus on sustainable development, such as loans that support long-term growth.
One example the report cites is debt-for-nature swaps, which would allow countries to redirect a portion of their debt repayments toward climate- or conservation-related projects. The commission also suggests mobilizing unused funds from existing lending facilities at international financial institutions (IFIs) to help countries particularly vulnerable to the climate crisis, such as small island states. It further suggests consolidating “scattered climate lending facilities” may also make it easier for vulnerable countries to access funding.
Banner image of drought in Brazil in 2023. Image by AP Photo/Edmar Barros.
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