Debt swaps for climate and conservation goals have experienced a resurgence in recent years. As COP29 negotiations kick off, they are presented as a dual solution for debt and climate issues, however they fall short in practice and pose risks that threaten to harm global south countries and communities. This briefing explains why instead of debt swaps, we need urgent debt cancellation and grant-based climate finance.

Amidst a new global south debt crisis, the debt architecture reform agenda cannot wait any longer. The Fourth UN International Financing for Development Conference (FfD4) is a key milestone to open an intergovernmental process towards the debt architecture reform that global south countries need.

Coordinated by thirty member organisations of the global Debt and Climate Working Group, this briefing is launched during the Bonn Climate Change Conference (3-13 June) and the 10th Technical Expert Dialogue for the process of establishing a new post-2025 climate finance goal. 

In mid-2025, the world’s governments will gather in Spain for the 4th United Nations Summit on Financing for Development (FfD). It will be a key moment to assess the fairness and efficiency of global economic governance, and for world leaders to address underlying systemic issues and challenges. With this in mind, it is high time to ask: how is it going with financing for development? In this report, we assess the situation with a specific focus on debt management, domestic resource mobilisation and illicit financial flows in nine focus countries: Bangladesh, Ecuador, Grenada, Kenya, Morocco, Nepal, Peru, Philippines, Zambia. 

English version | French version | Spanish version

This briefing is organised into ten basic questions. The answers demonstrate not only the complexity of the ESG bond market but also point to several problems with its expansion. 

This briefing aims to inform the discussions on debt swaps among civil society, academics and policy makers.

This policy briefing first appeared on Development Finance International. 

Countries in the global south are falling into a vicious cycle of debt and austerity, that only exacerbates the multiple crises. However, a financial system that delivers a fair resolution for the debt crises is possible.

This report looks at how debt and climate change are threatening the future of Small Island Developing States (SIDS), and suggests calls to action to help tackle these challenges

This report exposes the dangers of a post-pandemic austerity shock, far more premature and severe than the one that followed the global financial crisis.

This document provides information for activists and social movements working on climate, debt and global economic and environmental justice. It has been published ahead of a global campaign pushing for climate justice and debt justice and includes tips on how to get involved. 

The questions are also available as a downloadable PDF in: English | Español | Français| Português

Debt audits can be a powerful tool to support civil society engagement in citizen assessment of debt impacts but also to increase citizens’ participation in public finance governance, leading to an increase in accountability and transparency and allowing for the identification of illegitimate debts at the national, regional and municipal level.

Read the briefing in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese.

Public debt levels have been on the rise over the past decade and this dynamic has been exacerbated further by the Covid-19 pandemic. This report aims to shed light on the lack of transparency
in the case of sovereign bonds of middle- and low-income countries.

The Global Austerity Alert is published by ITUC, Public Services International, Bretton Woods Project, Third World Network, Arab Watch Coalition and IPD/Columbia University.

Our latest briefing provides an overview of the dynamics and implications of the 2020 sovereign debt crisis. The prioritisation of creditor rights over the livelihoods of the population of developing countries is a well-known dead-end. Instead, the international community must recognise that the health and wellbeing of millions of people in developing countries is a precondition for debt sustainability.

In November 2020, Suriname joined ranks with Zambia, becoming the second country to default on its sovereign debt in the aftermath of Covid-19. In this briefing, we explore the origins of Suriname’s debt crisis and highlights the substantial challenges faced by the country to overcome it.

This series of articles has been produced by Eurodad in collaboration with our global partners on the implementation of the Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI), complementing and updating the report "Shadow report on the limitations of the G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative: Draining out the Titanic with a bucket?" published in October 2020.

Read the series in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French.

Covid-19 has unleashed a crisis of unimaginable proportions. In this compilation of reports and briefings released throughout 2020, we review the impact of the pandemic on debt and development finance.

Read the book in English, French and Spanish.

Our latest report focuses on the climate emergency and how it has become a wider focus of policy discussions around debt, as extreme climatic events and environmental hazards increase both the cost of borrowing and the risk of debt crises in countries in the global south that are often already bearing large external debt stocks.

Read the report in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French. 

On behalf of participating CSOs, Eurodad has published a background briefing for the 2020 discussions between CSOs and the EU's Sub-Committee on the International Monetary Fund (SCIMF).

This briefing provides an analysis of the possible structure of the G20 'Common Framework for Debt Treatments beyond the DSSI'. It describes the likely structure of the framework, and analyses why a Paris Club-based approach to the Common Framework is unlikely to succeed.

Read the briefing in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French.

A Eurodad-led review reveals insufficient and inadequate multilateral response to the Covid-19 pandemic on the part of the IMF, locking a large number of countries into a decade-long crisis of debt and austerity. 

Read the report in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French.

A new Eurodad report has identified an available IMF mechanism to impose debt standstills: Article VIII, Section 2 (b) of the IMF Articles of Agreement. The article in question allows the IMF to impose a debt standstill through the temporary suspension of enforceability of debt contracts in domestic courts of more than 189 IMF member countries, including the US and the UK.

Read the report in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese.

La crisis de Covid-19 tiene el potencial de devastar el sustento y las vidas de los 1.200 millones de personas en 69 Economías de Bajos Ingresos cubiertos por este informe. 

Evaluación de costos de una moratoria de la deuda para enfrentar la crisis de Covid-19

This briefing is provided to inform development of policy responses to the Covid-19 crisis and in support of calls from wider civil society for debt cancellations for the world’s poorest countries in the face of the current crisis. 

This briefing provides an assessment of the costs and implications of an immediate debt moratorium for 69 countries classified as Lower Income Economies.

Public services play a critical role in advancing human rights and fighting inequality. However, growing levels of external public debt, especially in the global south, threaten the very services on which citizens depend in order to have even a basic standard of living.

Read the report in English, French and Spanish

Austerity and the Washington Consensus do not need to be the “new normal.” There are alternatives, even in the poorest countries.

Ahora existe un amplio consenso en las comunidades financieras y de desarrollo internacionales de que está creciendo una nueva ola de crisis de deuda

There is now widespread consensus within the international finance and development communities that a new wave of debt crises is unfurling. 

Transparency of debt information is good for everyone. It gives lenders more certainty about the basis upon which they are lending, it gives borrowers lower interest rates, and it allows citizens to subject lending and borrowing by their governments to more scrutiny, including through holding public debt audits into borrowing and lending decisions. 

As a result of protracted conflict and devastating recurring droughts, Somalia is one of Sub-Saharan Africa’s most troubled and underdeveloped countries.

The second session of the Intergovernmental Group of Experts on Financing for Development will focus on the action areas of sections E and F of chapter II of the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, as follows: debt and debt sustainability and interrelated systemic issues. 

More than 600 Civil Society Organizations from all over the world have been working together for the last months via the Civil 20 (C20) to engage with the G20 on the most critical challenges facing today’s world.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a key part of the international financial architecture and wields huge influence over the domestic economic policies of impoverished countries

This report analyses finance's impacts on poverty, inequality and general interest more broadly.

Civil Society position on the IMF and World Bank Debt Sustainability Framework Review submitted in June 2016.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are ambitious objectives: business as usual will not deliver them.

Mozambique should not pay the hidden debt by Joseph Hanlon

Export Credit Agencies (ECAs) are key institutions governments employ to support private companies doing business overseas. ECAs offer a wide range of guarantees and insurances to private companies. This makes it easier for these companies to gain access to finance, mostly from banks.

African civil society groups give a "cautious welcome" to the G20's plans for a "Compact for Africa"

This new report, published by a coalition of UK and African organisations, including Eurodad members Global Justice Now and Jubilee Debt Campaign, makes a series of recommendations as to how the system extracting wealth from Africa could be dismantled.

In this study from Eurodad member erlassjahr.de, in cooperation with the Friedrich Ebert-Foundation.

In the run-up to the G20 Finance Ministers' meeting in Baden-Baden last weekend, Erlassjahr / Jubilee Germany released their annual report on sovereign indebtedness.

In January 2017 the government of Mozambique defaulted on a bond interest payment. Ghana is already dependent on loans from the IMF and World Bank to pay the high interest on loans from private lenders. Many of these debts are under the jurisdiction of the UK, with over 90% of subSaharan African government bonds owed under English law.

Ghana is in a debt crisis. Having had significant amounts of debt cancelled a decade ago, the country is losing around 30% of government revenue in external debt payments each year.

This Eurodad discussion paper analyses the evolving nature of developing country debt and solutions for change. It aims to identify relevant reform processes on an international level, and more practically to keep progressive actors that want to drive change informed about existing opportunities.

This report surveys the IMF’s impact on post revolutionary Arab states by documenting the history of IMF involvement in the region. It then traces the change in IMF rhetoric and practice before and after 2011 in four Arab countries: Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan, and Egypt.

This report investigates the debts owed by countries as a whole – both their governments and the private sector – minus the debts owed to them. It finds that the level of such debts owed between countries has risen from $11.3 trillion in 2011 to $13.8 trillion in 2014, and predicts that in 2015 they will increase further to $14.7 trillion.

This paper draws key conclusions for policy makers based on research and major analyses that have been published in the run up to the United Nations’ third Conference on Financing for Development (FfD), which takes place in Addis Ababa in July 2015.

The Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt (CADTM) has been working tirelessly since 1990 to demonstrate the relationship between debt and the inability of the world’s economic system to secure even the most basic rights for hundreds of millions of people around the world. 

Billions in “out of control” IFC investments into third-parties causing human rights abuses around the world 

In a report titled, “Towards justice-centred debt solutions: Lessons from Argentina,” launched by Eurodad's member Debt & Development Coalition Ireland (DDCI), Argentine economist Professor Alan Cibils points to a number of lessons for Ireland and Europe from the Argentinean experience of debt crisis.

Eurodad’s members SOMO and Both ENDS in collaboration with Transnational Institute and Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands) have published a report titled Socialising losses, privatising gains. How Dutch investment treaties harm the public interest. This paper gives a critical civil society perspective on the clear tension between BITs protections and the democratic right and duty of the state to regulate in the broader public interest.

Eurodad member Jubilee Debt Campaign have put together a briefing of six key facts about Greece’s debt ahead of the country's elections on Sunday 25th January.

This Eurodad report looks at the new debt picture in the sixth year of the global financial crisis. Debt vulnerabilities have changed, but overall they have not been substantially reduced. Unsustainable and illegitimate debt is still a risk to financial stability and, ultimately, to the economic and social fabric of our nations.

This report is the first comprehensive civil society analysis of guarantees in development and climate finance, a still largely unexplored area.

This new report by Counter Balance and Eurodad, and supported by Oxfam, analyses in detail the Global Gateway and focuses on 40 of its flagship projects - notably in energy and climate (including raw materials), digital, and health sectors. It dives deep into the question: is the Global Gateway advancing the EU's foreign policy and corporate interests at the expense of real development in its partner countries?

Aid data from 2023 has called into question the direction in which Official Development Assistance (ODA) is headed. More worryingly still, some rich countries have already announced budget cuts for 2024. This report provides a basis for discussion and debate at a time when the value of ODA is more relevant than ever.

This paper has been written and coordinated by Eurodad, and supported by ActionAid. It explores trends, risks and opportunities of blended finance for climate action and highlights ways of ensuring that blended finance empowers communities, rather than create dependencies on richer countries. 

English version | French version | Spanish version

These two case studies accompany the report "Blended finance for climate action: good value for money?", written and coordinated by Eurodad, and supported by ActionAid.

English version | French version | Spanish version

Since 2018, temporary rules have allowed donor countries to report private-sector oriented operations, known as Private Sector Instruments, as official development assistance. In this report, we chart the increased use of such operations, highlight problematic gaps in transparency and accountability, and end with recommendations both for the OECD DAC and wider civil society.

Official Development Assistance (ODA or aid) reached a new all-time-high of US$204 billion in 2022, but behind the headline figures the data shows even higher inflation of ODA than witnessed in 2021. It is vital to make sure that the integrity of ODA is preserved to serve the needs of people across the global south rather than the interests of countries in the global north.

This is the second in a series of reports providing an in-depth analysis of various kinds of PPP projects through seven case studies across different sectors, such as education, health, transport and water, and in countries like India, Liberia, Mexico, Nepal, Peru, Scotland and Spain. It also analyses emerging trends, particularly in light of the Covid-19 pandemic and the multiple crises facing the world.

This paper has been written and coordinated by Eurodad, and supported by Action Aid, The East African Center for Human Rights, Initiative for Social and Economic Rights, The Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Oxfam, Public Services International and Transnational Institute. It argues that international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF are not doing enough to protect public services, despite their rhetoric arguing the opposite. It is time for a new approach, and a break with the mistakes of the past.

This executive summary report by Eurodad is part of a joint publication coordinated by Bread for the World and the Heinrich Böll Stiftung (Washington DC Office) which includes regional reports from Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Zimbabwe, India, Indonesia, The Philippines and Peru. It presents the state of play of public-private partnerships in the energy sector and demonstrates why they are a risky business.

This report exposes the dangers of a post-pandemic austerity shock, far more premature and severe than the one that followed the global financial crisis.

In 2021, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen presented the EU Global Gateway in her State of the Union speech. She claimed it was the EU’s new flagship strategy, investing in infrastructure to counter the influence of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. One year later, a new Eurodad and Counter Balance report reveals that the Global Gateway lacks a clear development mandate.

One of the main outcomes of COP26 is the process to agree a new collective quantified goal on climate finance (NCQG). In order to facilitate deliberations and an exchange of experiences and best practices, several public consultations have been organised. This is Eurodad's August 2022 submission to the UNFCCC.

In the last decades, the European Investment Bank (EIB) has become a significant player in the field of development finance. With the creation of its new ‘EIB Global’ development branch in 2022, the bank is planning to step up its development role in support of EU development policies. This position paper, signed by 23 Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), sets out a series of recommendations on how EIB Global can help the EIB become a true development bank.

This toolkit has been designed for those who are new to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP) processes.

More than two years on from the outbreak of Covid-19, developing countries still have a long way to go to control the pandemic and its effects. Although in 2021 ODA reached a new all-time-high of US$178.9 billion, this is still insufficient to meet the mid-term and long-term challenges ahead of 2030 and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Furthermore, in relative terms ODA remained at 0.33 per cent – far from the 0.7 per cent international commitment.

This briefing aims to support civil society organisations and EU Member States to reshape the future of EIB Global. It includes a number of recommendations, including a call on EU Member States to democratise EIB Global operations, and for a policy framework to be developed that creates metrics, benchmarks and assessments that matter for definancialised, sustainable, decolonial and equitable development.

Written by Thomas Marois, SOAS University of London

Monetary policies – the actions undertaken by a nation's central bank to control the money supply – influence a range of economic justice issues. Notably, their interaction with fiscal policies impacts a country’s domestic resource mobilisation capacity. Yet, few civil society organisations at national and international level focus on influencing monetary policy. To a large extent, this is because for decades monetary policy has been taken out of the public and political debate, and relegated to mere technical issues for specialists. It also reflects a lack of awareness of alternatives to the neoliberal understanding of monetary policy as primarily an instrument for controlling inflation.

The handbook is the outcome of a project led by ActionAid International, Eurodad, INESC (Brazil), SEATINI and CEHURD (Uganda), SIKKA (Tanzania), and WEMOS.

In August 2021, the IMF issued the largest allocation of Special Drawing Rights (SDR) in history. This briefing takes stock of the discussion on how to channel unused SDRs from rich to developing countries and assesses the different solutions proposed so far.

The Covid-19 pandemic is much more than a health crisis. And although it has affected all populations around the world, the consequences in richer versus poorer countries differ substantially. Official Development Assistance (ODA), or aid, has a fundamental role to play. It is the largest source of external financing for Least Developing Countries (LDCs) and a vital resource for supporting key sectors that promote the reduction of poverty and address inequalities. With ODA levels stagnant, it is critical that these resources are used effectively.

Infrastructure is key for achieving sustainable development and for improving the living conditions of people across the world, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Paris Agreement and commitments on gender equality. Building on our work with partners from the global north and south, this briefing provides a framing to understand sustainable infrastructure from a systemic perspective. 

This briefing is available in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese.

It is more crucial than ever that scarce aid resources are directed where they have most impact. And yet, new Eurodad research on tied aid finds that more than one in every five dollars of bilateral and EU aid was reported as tied in 2018.

This report is also available in French and Spanish

This toolkit aims to inform those who are new to COP processes and provides suggestions on how to engage in COP26. Specifically, this toolkit explains what the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is, looks at the Agreements that operationalise the Convention and covers some of the many technical bodies of the UNFCCC.

Case studies that accompany the report "Reclaiming sustainable infrastructure as a public good" published in English, Spanish and French.

Infrastructure is key to improving living conditions worldwide, but the current push to attract (often foreign) private finance to projects in the global south risks undermining development objectives. How can we reclaim sustainable infrastructure as a public good?

This report is available in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese.

In its use of Development Policy Financing in its Covid-19 response so far, the World Bank has lost the opportunity to break with the past and play a truly progressive and transformative role in helping countries rebuild their economies. 

This report is also available in Spanish and French

The latest briefing by the Financial Transparency Coalition tracks fiscal and social protection responses to Covid-19 in the global south.

The Global Austerity Alert is published by ITUC, Public Services International, Bretton Woods Project, Third World Network, Arab Watch Coalition and IPD/Columbia University.

In March 2020 the World Bank Group pledged to provide US$ 160bn to client countries in the 15 months to June 2021. In this briefing we analyse the Bank's response and ask, given private finance's central role, who is truly benefitting from their Covid-19 response package? 

Read the Spanish version | Read the French version

Climate finance is a vital and powerful sustainable development tool. This briefing highlights lessons learned from long-standing work on development finance that need to be taken into account in climate finance discussions taking place in 2021.

Read the briefing in English and Spanish.

The aim of this paper is to contribute to an informed dialogue on the most appropriate forms of development finance in view of the critical debt situation of African countries and in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis.

Official development assistance (ODA) plays a fundamental role in an increasingly complex development finance landscape. However, ODA levels have been stagnating in recent years and a new narrative placing ‘the private sector’ at the heart of resource mobilisation efforts has emerged. This report brings together and analyses all agreements and commitments made to date by DAC members on the topic of ODA and private sector instruments, their implications and the main issues at stake.

Read the report in English, French and Portuguese.

Covid-19 has unleashed a crisis of unimaginable proportions. In this compilation of reports and briefings released throughout 2020, we review the impact of the pandemic on debt and development finance.

Read the book in English, French and Spanish.

Today, Eurodad and EPSU (The European Federation of Public Service Unions) are launching a report about the broken promises of public-private partnerships (PPPs).

A new analysis of how Development Finance Institutions are responding to the Covid-19 crisis suggests they are unable to foster inclusive and sustainable businesses and spur a much needed transition to low-carbon economies.

The Covid-19 pandemic has triggered health, economic and social crises of unprecedented proportions that have the potential to seriously undermine the (already slow) progress made by developing countries towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

An analysis of the European Commission's proposals on EFSD and EFSD+ in the revised NDICI and Next Generation EU.

The Covid-19 pandemic is in danger of seriously undermining the capability of developing countries to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Helping these countries to respond adequately to the health emergency and economic fall-out requires a broad range of systemic measures and close international cooperation.

The World Bank exerts influence over the development policies of low and middle income countries.

Development finance institutions (DFIs) have a positive role to play in supporting economic growth and job creation through the mobilisation of private investment in developing countries. 

At the heart of the Sustainable Development Goals is an international commitment to Universal Health Coverage (UHC). This responds to the urgent need to address a crucial problem: at least half of the world’s population still lacks access to essential health services, and affordability remains a key reason for that.

Las Asociaciones Público-Privadas (APP) vienen siendo activamente impulsadas por los gobiernos donantes y las instituciones financieras internacionales para financiar servicios sociales y proyectos de infraestructura en todo el mundo. Sin embargo, el apoyo a las APP es contrario a los compromisos asumidos por los gobiernos en el marco de la Agenda 2030, y en otras instancias, para promover la igualdad de género y el cumplimiento de los derechos de la mujer.

Support for PPPs runs counter to governments’ commitments to promote gender equality and the fulfilment of women’s rights under Agenda 2030 and elsewhere.

The changing faces of development aid and cooperation: Encouraging global justice or buttressing inequalities?

This letter has been sent to the EU Heads of State and Govermnent on the 4th December 2018.

This letter was sent to the Foreign Affairs Council on 26 November 2018. 

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) practice of attaching policy conditions to its loans for crisis-hit countries continues to trigger outrage and protest. This report investigates the conditions attached to the IMF loans for 26 country programmes that were approved in 2016 and 2017. 

This toolkit aims to support civil society in their advocacy towards the World Bank Group (WBG).

Updated October 2023

Public-Private Partnerships are increasingly being promoted as the solution to the shortfall in financing needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. This report gives an in-depth, evidence-based analysis of the impact of ten PPP projects across four continents, in both the global south and the global north.

More than 600 Civil Society Organizations from all over the world have been working together for the last months via the Civil 20 (C20) to engage with the G20 on the most critical challenges facing today’s world.

Few doubt the need for significant global investment in sustainable infrastructure. Without better social and economic infrastructure, such as hospitals, schools, railways and sanitation, the prospect of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals looks increasingly remote.

The Addis Ababa Agenda for Action (AAAA), agreed in 2015, was supposed to provide the framework for how the world would finance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This is a background paper authored by Jesse Griffiths, Director of Eurodad, on the occasion of the UNCTAD intergovernmental expert group meeting in October 2017.

In recent years, multilateral development banks (MDBs), led by the World Bank, have placed a strong emphasis on finding resources for a so-called infrastructure ‘financing gap’, with a particular focus on leveraging private finance.

Reclaiming Public Services is vital reading for anyone interested in the future of local, democratic services like energy, water and health care. This is an in-depth world tour of new initiatives in public ownership and the variety of approaches to deprivatisation.

High levels of inequality across Africa have prevented much of the benefits of recent growth from reaching the continent’s poorest people.

Eurodad member Bank Information Center in collaboration with Inclusive Development International, Accountability Counsel, The Oakland Institute and Urgewald, have released a report, Unjust Enrichment: How the IFC Profits from Land Grabbing in Africa.

Public development banks (PDBs) are enjoying a resurgence. The global financial and economic crisis has stimulated new interest in PDBs, particularly given the important role they play in providing counter-cyclical financing when private capital is in short supply.

This briefing from Eurodad member Global Justice Now reviews recent investments by the CDC, the development finance arm of the UK Department for International Development, and shows how serious questions remain about its impact on poverty reduction.

This analysis shows how many DFIs are still not doing enough to eliminate the risk of public money being complicit in tax avoidance schemes.

This briefing analyses compliance with the ownership principle by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank Group and the European Commission (EC).

Eurodad’s report The state of finance for developing countries 2014 showed that developing countries continue to lose significantly more financial resources than they gain due to failings in the international economic and monetary system. In addition, as Eurodad’s report setting out key challenges for policy makers in advance of last year’s UN summit on Financing for Development in Addis Ababa argued, the quality of the financing that developing countries receive also needs improvement.

Increasing transparency of reporting by the providers of cross border official finance (‘official flows’) can help increase the accountability of those providers to their citizens and those recipients to whom they have made promises.

Providing an in-depth analysis of two major infrastructure projects in the Veneto region in Italy, Re:Common and Counter Balance's report focuses on the corruption and state capture issues related to them. Both the Passante di Mestre and the Mose projects have become enmeshed in one of the biggest corruption scandals in Italian history, leading to the arrests of politicians, businessmen and public officials. We refer here to this scandal of systemic corruption as the “Veneto system”.

TTIP-style trade deals could undermine workers’ rights and force people in poor countries into low pay, low skill jobs, according to a new report from ActionAid.

Two Dutch dredging companies and the Dutch government played a major role in the recent effort to widen and deepen the Suez Canal.

This report documents the hurdles communities and workers face in obtaining remedy from development banks whose projects cause them harm.

It is widely recognised that having productive employment is a key dimension of human wellbeing. One of the most important functions of such employment is that it generates income that may be used for vital necessities such as food, shelter and health services and hence be instrumental in poverty reduction. However, for most people there is also an intrinsic value of being productive and an associated strain of being idle and unemployed.

ActionAid’s policy report Diversify and Conquer discusses what Bangladesh’s government needs to do to create decent jobs for the country’s workers so they have better employment alternatives to jobs in garment factories, where they are poorly paid and badly treated. Opening this path to a brighter future requires transforming the economy by investing in manufacturing sectors that bring in more money for the country, like engineering and electronics.

Development finance has changed substantially over the past decade. Private finance has replaced aid at the centre of global and national development initiatives, for both governments and international bodies.

Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) are increasingly expected to thoroughly report on the impacts of their operations, particularly on development and poverty reduction. Some DFIs have adopted specific monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems to assess the developmental impact of their activities and make adjustments throughout the project cycle when necessary. Given DFIs’ increased role in the development landscape, analysing these systems is opportune to identify their strengths and weaknesses, and to find out ways in which they can be improved.

A report authored by Eurodad partners GRAIN and RIAO-RDC looks at how European and US development finance is bankrolling a new round of agro-colonialism in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

In this new report, Eurodad partner Counter Balance and member Re: Common look into the role of public banks as powerful tools to finance projects of public interest and how public finance needs to be transformed for this to happen.

How can we ensure that business – in particular multinational enterprises (MNEs) – really contribute to development in the countries where they operate? How can responsibility of their actions be granted against development impacts? How to keep them accountable for spending public money? These seem quite immediate questions. However, they still need to be answered.

This report provides the most comprehensive review of the quantity of different financing sources available to developing countries, and how they have changed over the past decade.

Developing countries lose billions of dollars every year through tax avoidance and evasion. Tax havens play a pivotal role in this by providing low or no taxation and by promising secrecy, allowing businesses to dodge taxes and remain largely unaccountable for their actions.

This report assesses the portfolios of six of the largest multilateral and bilateral Development Finance Institutions (DFI) that are providing support to private investments in developing countries, highlighting the main features of DFI operations, as well as their potential strengths and weaknesses

Loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) largely come with policy change conditions attached – conditions that the IMF has played a significant role in developing. This analysis confirms the findings of other research, which shows that the IMF uses its significant influence to promote controversial austerity and liberalisation measures, with potentially severe impacts on the poorest people around the globe.

The EU’s blending agenda is supported by a narrative that focuses on bringing the private sector to the centre of its development strategies. However, it is also a convenient excuse for donors to give less ODA. In this report, we examine EU blending mechanisms in the context of a broader EU blending agenda.

A joint report by Eurodad and ActionAid

A case study from the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad) with the Uganda National NGO Forum

With a fifty year history of involvement in key sectors of Ghana’s economy, the World Bank continues to maintain an influential position in the country.

In mid-2025, the world’s governments will gather in Spain for the 4th United Nations Summit on Financing for Development (FfD). It will be a key moment to assess the fairness and efficiency of global economic governance, and for world leaders to address underlying systemic issues and challenges. With this in mind, it is high time to ask: how is it going with financing for development? In this report, we assess the situation with a specific focus on debt management, domestic resource mobilisation and illicit financial flows in nine focus countries: Bangladesh, Ecuador, Grenada, Kenya, Morocco, Nepal, Peru, Philippines, Zambia. 

English version | French version | Spanish version

Progressive environmental taxation is pivotal to making progress on the ecological transition, as well as on social and economic justice. In this paper, we introduce the concept of Excessive Ecological Footprint Taxation to combat the exploitation of global environmental public goods and catalyse the social-ecological transformation of our economies.

Non-inclusiveness and illegitimacy continue to be key concerns in relation to the negotiation of global tax rules. In this briefing we question how inclusive is the Inclusive Framework and who is really sat around the decision table.

Tax-related illicit financial flows continue to cost countries hundreds of billions of dollars in lost tax income every year. This document contains a proposal for what a UN Convention on Tax might look like.

Non-inclusiveness and illegitimacy continue to be key concerns in relation to the negotiation of global tax rules. But which countries are really at the table when new rules get negotiated? And what are the risks associated with non-inclusive decision-making?

Transparency can help to support a level playing field, to inspire investor confidence and to help sustain public trust – all of which will in turn support business. This is why there is a strong business case for mandatory public country by country reporting.

Read the report in English | Français | Español

Every year, corporate tax avoidance costs countries around the world an estimated US$ 500 billion.

The Group of 77 (G77) – representing more than 130 developing countries – has repeatedly proposed the establishment of an intergovernmental tax body under the United Nations (UN) to fix the broken global tax system.

In 2016, in response to the tax scandal known as the ‘Panama Papers’, the European Commission put forward a proposal for a 5th EU Anti-Money Laundering Directive. Among other things, the Commission suggested introducing public registers of beneficial owners – something that civil society organisations and the European Parliament had been advocating for many years.

This report by the Vienna Institute for International Dialogue and Cooperation aims to address this potential conflict and to consider the trade-offs and complementarities between environmental taxation and social equity.

More than 600 Civil Society Organizations from all over the world have been working together for the last months via the Civil 20 (C20) to engage with the G20 on the most critical challenges facing today’s world.

The United Nations (UN) is a highly complex organisation. It can be difficult for civil society advocates to know where to start and the best way to exert any influence. 

The United Nations (UN) is a highly complex organisation. It can be difficult for civil society advocates to know where to start and the best way to exert any influence.

Over the last few years, advance pricing agreements (APAs) – also known as ‘comfort letters’ or ‘sweetheart deals’ – have been at the centre of several tax scandals, as well as state aid cases that the European Commission has launched against EU Member States, involving alleged loss of millions of Euros in tax income.

The briefing is based on the report Tax Games – the Race to the Bottom, which was produced by civil society organisations in countries across Europe.

European governments are leading a race to the bottom which will see average global corporate tax rates hit zero by 2052, according to new findings released today [December 4]. An analysis of the EU and Norway shows 12 governments have either just cut their corporate tax rate, or are planning to do so in the near future.

Eurodad, Oxfam, Transparency International and EPSU released an updated document on public country-by-country reporting following the outcome of the vote int he European Parliament during the Maltese Presidency.

The last decade has revealed scandal after scandal exposing how multinational companies use one country’s tax system, or a combination of several countries’ tax systems, to avoid paying tax in a third country

Big business is able to take advantage of loopholes in global tax laws and avoid tax on a massive scale.

As part of the base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) process which was initiated in 201 3, the OECD was tasked to come up with recommendations on different areas of international tax standards.

This report from Oxfam on the EU banking sector provides just a glimpse into the harm that tax abuse is causing across the world.

This new report, published jointly by six CEE CSOs including Eurodad members Glopolis, Demnet, IGO and Ekvilib Institute, looks at the tax dealings of major companies in six CEE countries.

This timely report sets out the challenges posed to sustainability when a tax system is open to abuse.

According to Eurodad member Oxfam’s new report, “An Economy for the 99%”, the gap between rich and poor is far greater than had been feared.

This report from Eurodad member ActionAid looks at womens' experience of urban public transport in Bangladesh, Brazil and Nigeria. It finds that the specific needs of women and girls are not cared for and they are vulnerable to violence and less able to fully access their rights.

This briefing from Eurodad member ActionAid UK traces the link between tax avoidance and gender inequality.

This report from Eurodad member SOMO and the ETUC reveals how businesses use ‘letterbox practices’ to not only lower corporate taxes, but to get around labour laws and collective agreement.

After a wave of international tax scandals, the group of European governments in favour of greater tax transparency is finally beginning to grow. However, the battle is not yet won, as a number of governments remain opposed.

This analysis shows how many DFIs are still not doing enough to eliminate the risk of public money being complicit in tax avoidance schemes.

Taxation of multinational corporations is of utmost importance to developing countries, which on average generate around 10% of government revenues from this source. However, there are clear indications that the current international system is not working. One type of tax avoidance alone is currently costing developing countries between $70 billion and $120 billion per year. While often considered highly immoral, such international tax avoidance is often, technically speaking, legal.

Counter Balance has launched a report that critically analyses a little-known part of the European Investment Bank (EIB)’s operations: its use of private equity funds.

The Financial Transparency Coalition has launched a new working paper, Letting the Public In, which explores what it means to have information in open data formats, how to develop ‘gold standards’ that governments can adhere to, and what a data revolution can mean for financial transparency and illicit financial flows.

The Group of 77, representing more than 130 developing countries, have repeatedly proposed the establishment of an intergovernmental body under the United Nations (UN), to fix the broken global tax system. This briefing details ten reasons why this proposal would benefit everyone – and how it can be done.

As the European Union (EU) considers introducing public country-by-country reporting (CBCR) for European multinationals as well as for non-EU multinationals operating in the EU, Transparency International EU (TI EU) has looked at what evidence there is about the impact of this kind of reporting in terms of company competitiveness.

The Netherlands is a top EU tax haven for corporations, an analysis by Eurodad member Oxfam of European Commission data shows. Of 33 harmful tax practices listed by the EU executive, 17 were identified in the country currently holding the EU presidency.

Inequality is rising around the world. Fighting inequality must be an integrated priority for everyone in development, to promote and achieve sustainable development.

Safeguarding the advances the continent has already achieved and ensuring inclusive and sustainable growth must be a priority for all the countries in the region.

In 2015, French banks published for the first time key information on their activities, which included the taxes they pay in the countries in which they operate.

In the globalized economy, a widespread network of thousands of international treaties decides how and how much governments can tax the incomes of multinationals. Institutions such as the IMF and the United Nations, among others, are increasingly questioning whether these treaties support sustainable development. Belgium has also signed tax treaties with ninety-two countries, almost half of which are with developing countries.

Right now, stretching across the world is a web of tax agreements between governments.

Demands for tax justice have resounded worldwide, with inequality at historic and unsustainable levels and increased attention towards the tax practices of major multinational corporations from Google to Starbucks.

The global inequality crisis is reaching new extremes. The richest 1% now have more wealth than the rest of the world combined. Power and privilege is being used to skew the economic system to increase the gap between the richest and the rest.

This report presents a case study of Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Company (NLNG), Nigeria’s largest gas production facility, and examines the way in which its foreign shareholders – Shell (UK/Netherlands), Total (France) and Eni (Italy) – benefit from excessively generous tax breaks provided by the Nigerian government. 

In November 2013 Both ENDS published the report Cover for what?, which described how the financing for Dutch exports regularly involves parties that are registered in tax havens. This new report about the same issue focuses on new cases and shows that not much has changed since then.

A new survey of FTSE100 companies by Eurodad member Christian Aid suggests that a large majority of companies would not actively oppose the introduction of a legal requirement for them to make their country-by-country reports public, while some would actively support it. For its survey, Christian Aid wrote to all 100 companies in the FTSE100 share index, asking about their views on country-by-country reporting.

Tax is an issue of good corporate governance and responsible business practice.

This paper draws key conclusions for policy makers based on research and major analyses that have been published in the run up to the United Nations’ third Conference on Financing for Development (FfD), which takes place in Addis Ababa in July 2015.

This new report explores how developing countries collect much less corporate tax than they could as a result or corporate tax avoidance– revenue that could help to pay for public services and the fight against poverty.

Eurodad member Oxfam GB's report, Towards a Fair and Just Fiscal Policy in Pakistan, explores the elements necessary for a fair and just tax regime.

2015 is a year that will shape the course of history. A new set of Global Goals – the Sustainable Development Goals – will be launched in September, which will set out the path to a fairer, more prosperous world and an end to extreme poverty.

The new 2015 Government Spending Watch report (“Financing the Sustainable Development Goals: Lessons from Government Spending on the MDGs”) was launched April 13th by Oxfam and Development Finance International. The report uses new and unique data-sets from 67 countries on MDG spending over 2012-14 period, new data-sets on debt and defence spending, combined with in-depth analysis of the latest financing trends in developing countries, to draw lessons and implications for the FfD agenda of the SDGs.

Eurodad's member SOMO has published a new report titled Fool's Gold - How Canadian mining company Eldorado Gold destroys the Greek environment and dodges tax through Dutch mailbox companies. This report reveals that Greece’s economic recovery is being undermined by large-scale tax avoidance – enabled by the Netherlands. At the same time, Greece endures harsh austerity measures imposed by the European Commission, European Central Bank and IMF which are supported by the Netherlands. 

Eurodad's partner Tax Justice Network has just published a report entitled Ten Reasons to Defend the Corporation Tax. This report outlines ten reasons why it is essential to defend the corporate income tax.

Eurodad’s member Oxfam International has published a new briefing titled Pulling the plug: how to stop corporate tax dodging in Europe and beyond.

This new report by Spanish Eurodad member Intermón Oxfam titled "La ilusión fiscal" states how IBEX35 companies increased their presence in tax havens a 44%. In just one year their subsidiaries in tax havens passed from 561 in 2012 to 810 in 2013. This increasing presence in opaque low-tax jurisdictions contrasts with the data of Corporate Income Tax collection in Spain, which fell 56% from 2007 and 2014 thus representing a 25 billion € reduction. During the same period, Spanish population at poverty and exclusion risk grew to 2 millions (27.3% in 2013).

The report “What are the biggest French banks doing in tax havens?” / “Que font les plus grandes banques françaises dans les paradis fiscaux?” is now available also in English. The report is the output of the French platform on tax havens Plateforme Paradis Fiscaux et Judiciaires, which includes Eurodad members: CCFD-Terre Solidaire and Oxfam France. The report sheds light on the first country-by-country figures that have been published by French banks last year.

In a new report written by Eurodad member Christian Aid and endorsed by 18 other civil society organisations, the flaws in the current approach of the G20 towards automatic exchange of tax information are laid bare. 

Eurodad’s member ActionAid has published a research paper titled Close the gap: the cost of inequality in women’s work. The briefing highlights the injustice suffered by working women in developing countries and shows how the global economic system relies on women's paid and unpaid work. 

Eurodad’s members SOMO and Both ENDS in collaboration with Transnational Institute and Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands) have published a report titled Socialising losses, privatising gains. How Dutch investment treaties harm the public interest. This paper gives a critical civil society perspective on the clear tension between BITs protections and the democratic right and duty of the state to regulate in the broader public interest.

Eurodad's member Oxfam has published a research paper titled Wealth: Having It All and Wanting More, which shows that the combined wealth of the richest 1 percent will overtake that of the other 99 percent of people next year unless the current trend of rising inequality is checked.

The economic and financial crisis in Europe has raised awareness and frustration among both leaders and the public on the issue of tax dodging and its cost to the public purse. This report  brings together civil society organisations in 15 EU countries to examine their national governments’ commitments and actions towards combatting tax dodging and ensuring transparency.

Developing countries lose billions of dollars every year through tax avoidance and evasion. Tax havens play a pivotal role in this by providing low or no taxation and by promising secrecy, allowing businesses to dodge taxes and remain largely unaccountable for their actions.

Tax-related capital flight is a major problem the world over, particularly for the poorest people, who are unfairly losing billions of euro every year as a result of this practice. In this report, civil society organisations in 13 European countries examine the tax-related capital flight policies in their respective countries.

A joint report by Eurodad and ActionAid

This is the second in a series of reports providing an in-depth analysis of various kinds of PPP projects through seven case studies across different sectors, such as education, health, transport and water, and in countries like India, Liberia, Mexico, Nepal, Peru, Scotland and Spain. It also analyses emerging trends, particularly in light of the Covid-19 pandemic and the multiple crises facing the world.

This briefing aims to outline recommendations on how the European Investment Bank should address the interconnected issue of gender inequity and the climate crisis in the newly proposed policy.

Co-authored by Pieter Jansen (Both ENDS) and Leia Achampong (Eurodad).

As public-private partnerships (PPPs) are increasingly promoted, concerns about their impact are rising. 

Las Asociaciones Público-Privadas (APP) vienen siendo activamente impulsadas por los gobiernos donantes y las instituciones financieras internacionales para financiar servicios sociales y proyectos de infraestructura en todo el mundo. Sin embargo, el apoyo a las APP es contrario a los compromisos asumidos por los gobiernos en el marco de la Agenda 2030, y en otras instancias, para promover la igualdad de género y el cumplimiento de los derechos de la mujer.

Support for PPPs runs counter to governments’ commitments to promote gender equality and the fulfilment of women’s rights under Agenda 2030 and elsewhere.

This report from Eurodad member ActionAid looks at womens' experience of urban public transport in Bangladesh, Brazil and Nigeria. It finds that the specific needs of women and girls are not cared for and they are vulnerable to violence and less able to fully access their rights.

This briefing from Eurodad member ActionAid UK traces the link between tax avoidance and gender inequality.

Debt swaps for climate and conservation goals have experienced a resurgence in recent years. As COP29 negotiations kick off, they are presented as a dual solution for debt and climate issues, however they fall short in practice and pose risks that threaten to harm global south countries and communities. This briefing explains why instead of debt swaps, we need urgent debt cancellation and grant-based climate finance.

Coordinated by thirty member organisations of the global Debt and Climate Working Group, this briefing is launched during the Bonn Climate Change Conference (3-13 June) and the 10th Technical Expert Dialogue for the process of establishing a new post-2025 climate finance goal. 

Countries in the global south are disproportionately impacted by climate change. Yet the existing global climate finance goal of US$100 billion per year has never been met. And, according to the OECD, 71 per cent of public climate finance is delivered through loans.

This report looks at how debt and climate change are threatening the future of Small Island Developing States (SIDS), and suggests calls to action to help tackle these challenges

One of the main outcomes of COP26 is the process to agree a new collective quantified goal on climate finance (NCQG). In order to facilitate deliberations and an exchange of experiences and best practices, several public consultations have been organised. This is Eurodad's August 2022 submission to the UNFCCC.

This toolkit has been designed for those who are new to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP) processes.

Our sister secretariat Latindadd has produced a report reflecting on COP26. It contains the main positive and negative aspects that can be rescued from a balance of what happened at COP26 from Latindadd's perspective.

This toolkit aims to inform those who are new to COP processes and provides suggestions on how to engage in COP26. Specifically, this toolkit explains what the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is, looks at the Agreements that operationalise the Convention and covers some of the many technical bodies of the UNFCCC.

This document provides information for activists and social movements working on climate, debt and global economic and environmental justice. It has been published ahead of a global campaign pushing for climate justice and debt justice and includes tips on how to get involved. 

The questions are also available as a downloadable PDF in: English | Español | Français| Português

This briefing aims to outline recommendations on how the European Investment Bank should address the interconnected issue of gender inequity and the climate crisis in the newly proposed policy.

Co-authored by Pieter Jansen (Both ENDS) and Leia Achampong (Eurodad).

Climate finance is a vital and powerful sustainable development tool. This briefing highlights lessons learned from long-standing work on development finance that need to be taken into account in climate finance discussions taking place in 2021.

Read the briefing in English and Spanish.

Our latest report focuses on the climate emergency and how it has become a wider focus of policy discussions around debt, as extreme climatic events and environmental hazards increase both the cost of borrowing and the risk of debt crises in countries in the global south that are often already bearing large external debt stocks.

Read the report in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French. 

Eurodad member Bank Information Center in collaboration with Inclusive Development International, Accountability Counsel, The Oakland Institute and Urgewald, have released a report, Unjust Enrichment: How the IFC Profits from Land Grabbing in Africa.

A report authored by Eurodad partners GRAIN and RIAO-RDC looks at how European and US development finance is bankrolling a new round of agro-colonialism in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Eurodad's member SOMO has published a new report titled Fool's Gold - How Canadian mining company Eldorado Gold destroys the Greek environment and dodges tax through Dutch mailbox companies. This report reveals that Greece’s economic recovery is being undermined by large-scale tax avoidance – enabled by the Netherlands. At the same time, Greece endures harsh austerity measures imposed by the European Commission, European Central Bank and IMF which are supported by the Netherlands. 

Eurodad’s member ActionAid has published a new report titled Take Action: Stop EcoEnergy's Land Grab in Bagamoyo, Tanzania. This report shows that approximately 1,300 people will lose some or all of their land or homes to make way for a sugarcane plantation which is a flagship project of the G8’s initiative to increase agricultural investment in Africa, the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition. While EU money does not directly go to the company, the EU has committed their aid funding in Tanzania in support of the goals of the New Alliance, an investment framework that prioritises the interests of the private sector and the creation of large commercial farms. 

A new analysis of how Development Finance Institutions are responding to the Covid-19 crisis suggests they are unable to foster inclusive and sustainable businesses and spur a much needed transition to low-carbon economies.

The Covid-19 pandemic is in danger of seriously undermining the capability of developing countries to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Helping these countries to respond adequately to the health emergency and economic fall-out requires a broad range of systemic measures and close international cooperation.

The World Bank exerts influence over the development policies of low and middle income countries.

The World Bank exerts enormous influence over the economies of developing countries through loan conditions, advisory services, technical assistance and policy blueprints. 

The changing faces of development aid and cooperation: Encouraging global justice or buttressing inequalities?

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) practice of attaching policy conditions to its loans for crisis-hit countries continues to trigger outrage and protest. This report investigates the conditions attached to the IMF loans for 26 country programmes that were approved in 2016 and 2017. 

This position paper, endorsed by nineteen civil society organisations from the global south and the global north, sets out issues of concern shared by all signatories in relation to the OECD Development Assistance Committee's on-going negotiations on Private Sector Instruments.

Unleashing the catalytic power of Official Development Assistance through renewed action on untying.

In 2015 alone, donor governments around the world spent an estimated US$ 55 billion – or more than 44 per cent of Real Official Development Assistance (ODA) – on the procurement of goods and services. 

The Addis Ababa Agenda for Action (AAAA), agreed in 2015, was supposed to provide the framework for how the world would finance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Europe's new plan for investing in Africa will see EU development support being channelled through private companies.

On 14 September 2016 the European Commission proposed an External Investment Plan (EIP) 'to encourage investment in our partner countries in Africa and the EU Neighbourhood region, to strengthen its partnerships and contribute to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, helping to address some root causes of migration'.

The paper explores the relationship between two concepts: the objective of leaving no-one behind, and blended finance. Both are often cited, in different contexts, as central to realising the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

This is a background paper authored by Jesse Griffiths, Director of Eurodad, on the occasion of the UNCTAD intergovernmental expert group meeting in October 2017.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are ambitious objectives: business as usual will not deliver them.

The EU could take a generation to meet the 0.7%ODA/GNI target at the current rate of growth, reveals the CONCORD AidWatch Report 2017. While 2016 saw a substantial increase of 27% in development spending, there has also been a relatively dramatic increase in reporting of inflated aid, such as in-donor costs or debt relief.

This report is published jointly with Oxfam International.

The 2016 report from Reality of Aid notes that despite technical cooperation being one of the most widely used forms of aid, to date it has largely been conducted in isolation from principles of democratic ownership and partnership.

Increasing transparency of reporting by the providers of cross border official finance (‘official flows’) can help increase the accountability of those providers to their citizens and those recipients to whom they have made promises.

On July 21st 2015 the executive directors of the World Bank approved a new policy framework which governs the procurement activities of projects financed by the World Bank. This is the first major reform of the Bank’s procurement policy in over 50 years and is said to represent a major shift from how the Bank used to operate.

This paper draws key conclusions for policy makers based on research and major analyses that have been published in the run up to the United Nations’ third Conference on Financing for Development (FfD), which takes place in Addis Ababa in July 2015.

With just a few weeks to go before the first test of the post-2015 agenda in Addis Ababa, ActionAid Italy published a report on the current state of play on country ownership in post-2015 negotiations. 

This report provides the most comprehensive review of the quantity of different financing sources available to developing countries, and how they have changed over the past decade.

This paper discusses the main developments in the debate on concessionality over the past ten years and presents recommendations on how to optimise the developmental benefits of this reform.

These two case studies accompany the report "Blended finance for climate action: good value for money?", written and coordinated by Eurodad, and supported by ActionAid.

English version | French version | Spanish version

This paper has been written and coordinated by Eurodad, and supported by ActionAid. It explores trends, risks and opportunities of blended finance for climate action and highlights ways of ensuring that blended finance empowers communities, rather than create dependencies on richer countries. 

English version | French version | Spanish version

This is the second in a series of reports providing an in-depth analysis of various kinds of PPP projects through seven case studies across different sectors, such as education, health, transport and water, and in countries like India, Liberia, Mexico, Nepal, Peru, Scotland and Spain. It also analyses emerging trends, particularly in light of the Covid-19 pandemic and the multiple crises facing the world.

Infrastructure is key for achieving sustainable development and for improving the living conditions of people across the world, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Paris Agreement and commitments on gender equality. Building on our work with partners from the global north and south, this briefing provides a framing to understand sustainable infrastructure from a systemic perspective. 

This briefing is available in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese.

Case studies that accompany the report "Reclaiming sustainable infrastructure as a public good" published in English, Spanish and French.

Infrastructure is key to improving living conditions worldwide, but the current push to attract (often foreign) private finance to projects in the global south risks undermining development objectives. How can we reclaim sustainable infrastructure as a public good?

This report is available in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese.

In March 2020 the World Bank Group pledged to provide US$ 160bn to client countries in the 15 months to June 2021. In this briefing we analyse the Bank's response and ask, given private finance's central role, who is truly benefitting from their Covid-19 response package? 

Read the Spanish version | Read the French version

The aim of this paper is to contribute to an informed dialogue on the most appropriate forms of development finance in view of the critical debt situation of African countries and in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis.

Covid-19 has unleashed a crisis of unimaginable proportions. In this compilation of reports and briefings released throughout 2020, we review the impact of the pandemic on debt and development finance.

Read the book in English, French and Spanish.

Today, Eurodad and EPSU (The European Federation of Public Service Unions) are launching a report about the broken promises of public-private partnerships (PPPs).

Public development banks are in a unique and powerful position to play a key role in the post Covid-19 recovery. 

The Covid-19 pandemic has triggered health, economic and social crises of unprecedented proportions that have the potential to seriously undermine the (already slow) progress made by developing countries towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

This report is by Recourse, a Eurodad member.

As public-private partnerships (PPPs) are increasingly promoted, concerns about their impact are rising. 

Les Partenariats Public-Privé (PPP) sont de plus en plus promus comme une solution au déficit de financement nécessaire pour atteindre les Objectifs de développement durable (ODD). Les PPP sont utilisés, de manière croissante pour fournir des infrastructures économiques, telles que des chemins de fer, des routes, des aéroports et des ports, ainsi que des services essentiels tels que la santé, l’éducation, l’eau et l’électricité, dans les pays du nord et du sud.

Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) are increasingly being promoted as the solution to the shortfall in financing needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With ever greater frequency, PPPs are being used to deliver economic infrastructure, such as railways, roads, airports and ports, as well as key services such as health, education, water and electricity in both the global north and the global south.

En el centro de los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible está el compromiso internacional con la Cobertura Sanitaria Universal (CSU). Esto responde a la urgente necesidad de abordar un problema crucial: al menos la mitad de la población mundial sigue careciendo de acceso a los servicios esenciales de salud y la asequibilidad sigue siendo una razón clave para que esto suceda.

Development finance institutions (DFIs) have a positive role to play in supporting economic growth and job creation through the mobilisation of private investment in developing countries. 

At the heart of the Sustainable Development Goals is an international commitment to Universal Health Coverage (UHC). This responds to the urgent need to address a crucial problem: at least half of the world’s population still lacks access to essential health services, and affordability remains a key reason for that.

The World Bank exerts enormous influence over the economies of developing countries through loan conditions, advisory services, technical assistance and policy blueprints. 

Las Asociaciones Público-Privadas (APP) vienen siendo activamente impulsadas por los gobiernos donantes y las instituciones financieras internacionales para financiar servicios sociales y proyectos de infraestructura en todo el mundo. Sin embargo, el apoyo a las APP es contrario a los compromisos asumidos por los gobiernos en el marco de la Agenda 2030, y en otras instancias, para promover la igualdad de género y el cumplimiento de los derechos de la mujer.

Support for PPPs runs counter to governments’ commitments to promote gender equality and the fulfilment of women’s rights under Agenda 2030 and elsewhere.

This letter has been sent to the EU Heads of State and Govermnent on the 4th December 2018.

This letter was sent to the Foreign Affairs Council on 26 November 2018. 

Public-Private Partnerships are increasingly being promoted as the solution to the shortfall in financing needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. This report gives an in-depth, evidence-based analysis of the impact of ten PPP projects across four continents, in both the global south and the global north.

Few doubt the need for significant global investment in sustainable infrastructure. Without better social and economic infrastructure, such as hospitals, schools, railways and sanitation, the prospect of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals looks increasingly remote.

Moves towards the greater involvement of the private sector in Official Development Assistance (ODA, or "aid") could have a negative impact on the quality and quantity of development aid.

PPPs (also known as Private Finance Initiatives, or PFIs) are essentially long-term contracts, underwritten by government guarantees, under which the private sector builds (and sometimes runs) major infrastructure projects or services traditionally provided by the state, such as hospitals, schools, roads, railways, water, sanitation and energy.

European governments and the European Commission have been increasingly supporting a greater role for the private sector in their development cooperation.

A new briefing from Eurodad reveals how the increased promotion of public-private partnerships (PPPs) by the World Bank and others is having a disastrous impact on both developed and developing countries.

The Jubilee Debt Campaign has released the report: ‘Double standards: How the UK promotes rip-off health PPPs abroad’ (24 pages, with a 4 page executive summary).

Reclaiming Public Services is vital reading for anyone interested in the future of local, democratic services like energy, water and health care. This is an in-depth world tour of new initiatives in public ownership and the variety of approaches to deprivatisation.

The UK was one of the first countries to develop PPPs in the early 1990s, and its PPP programme, known as the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), subsequently expanded across all parts of public spending including healthcare, education and the military.

Eurodad partner Afrodad has launched a report which reviews and analyses the scope, role and impact of publicly supported private finance (PSPF) that is provided by Development Financial Institutions and other bilateral donors to the private sector and their contribution to positive development outcomes. It further examines the impact of PSPF to development and poverty reduction in Rwanda and Zambia.

Public-private partnerships (often referred to as PPPs) are increasingly promoted as a way to finance development projects. Donor governments and financial institutions, such as the World Bank, have set up multiple donor initiatives to promote changes in national regulatory frameworks to allow for PPPs, as well as provide advice and finance to PPP projects.

A new report titled Delivering sustainable development: A principled approach to public-private finance has been published by Oxfam International, Cafod, Eurodad, WWF, ActionAid and BOND. 

Development finance has changed substantially over the past decade. This report covers the main findings of Eurodad’s programme of research on Development Finance Institutions.

This report assesses the portfolios of six of the largest multilateral and bilateral Development Finance Institutions (DFI) that are providing support to private investments in developing countries, highlighting the main features of DFI operations, as well as their potential strengths and weaknesses

The EU’s blending agenda is supported by a narrative that focuses on bringing the private sector to the centre of its development strategies. However, it is also a convenient excuse for donors to give less ODA. In this report, we examine EU blending mechanisms in the context of a broader EU blending agenda.