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.

In September, the United Nations will agree on the sustainable development goals (SDGs), a new set of targets that will shape the international development agenda for the next 15 years. The restructuring of sovereign debt has been identified by the United Nations Open Working Group (OWG) as something the world must get right if it is to successfully implement these goals. Yet crippling national debt crises persist, and no system exists to restructure these debts in a speedy and effective manner.

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. 

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.