The G20 Finance Ministers of the world’s largest economies met in Buenos Aires last weekend, but their failure to tackle pressing global problems, including the threat of trade wars and a looming debt crisis, highlighted how ineffective the G20 has become.  Given that the G20 cannot tackle key issues, is promoting ineffective initiatives, and has largely become a rubber stamping body for other actors, the time is ripe to rethink how the global economy is governed, and to promote alternatives.

This article has also been published by Triple Crisis. 

Argentinians are experiencing deja-vu this month as the government announces massive layoffs and a hiring freeze as part of an adjustment package attached to a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Thousands of public servants are being forced yet again to swallow the bitter pill of austerity, which the IMF programme - published last Friday - aims to patch up through increased targeted social assistance.

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

On 2 July, the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD DAC) will decide whether to change the rules on how debt relief is reported as Official Development Assistance (ODA). There is a serious risk that these changes could create loopholes allowing donors that use debt-based instruments to inflate their aid levels at the expense of the poorest countries.

Eurozone finance ministers convened for a crucial Eurogroup session in Brussels on 21 June and agreed on a last-minute set of new debt reprofiling measures for Greece. The package of maturity extensions, interest deferrals and €15bn in new loans from the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) means that the Greek debt stock is likely to rise further in coming years.

In a landmark ruling on 31 May, the Belgian Constitutional Court upheld the country’s anti-vulture funds law, rejecting a legal challenge by a particularly notorious fund. NML Capital, an opaque vulture fund listed in the offshore financial centre of the Cayman Islands, had tried to shelve the Belgian law and intervene in democratic decision-making in Belgium. The ruling means the law remains in force, and agreements by the European Parliament and the United Nations imply that it is on the way to becoming an example for a worldwide solution to the challenges that vulture funds pose to the fair and speedy resolution of debt crises.

The Spring Meetings of the IMF and World Bank took place amid warnings of a ‘borrowed boom’ as an uptick in global growth was matched by global debt levels reaching record highs. 

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