A global debt crisis looms over countries in the Global South, home to 85 percent of the world population. By the end of 2024, countries in the southern hemisphere spent over $1 billion a day on debt payments alone. At least 45 countries are paying more than 15 percent of their annual budgets on debt, and debt payments are growing to consume more of each country’s annual budget.
High interest rates and debt payments prevent developing nations from spending on the needs of their people. For example, almost half of the world’s population lives in countries that spend more on debt than on either education or healthcare. The consequences of the disparity can be visceral. In Kenya, an effort by the national legislature to increase taxes in mid-2024 to address the high debt burden led to demonstrations across the country by young people, known as Gen Z, that left more than 50 people dead.
The untenable debt situation is only being exacerbated by climate change. Cash-strapped nations are unable to afford to mitigate natural disasters and are even more hard-pressed to recover from these events. The International Institute for Environment and Development says this is a “vicious cycle of borrowing more money to support their people and rebuild their infrastructure, further compounding their debts.” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres calls the situation a “systemic failure.”
One cause of the systemic failure was COVID-19. A report by the German Catholic development agency Misereor noted that 55 percent of the countries in the Global South were in critical debt situations in 2024, up from 37 percent pre-pandemic. Countries took on debt to mitigate the effects of the pandemic, but while developed nations, such as the United States, could afford to borrow at artificially low rates, other countries had to borrow money in a currency they did not control.
Institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund provided some loans, but so did private lenders that operate with minimal oversight. Private lenders based in New York now control over half of all sovereign debt, according to a report by Oxfam.
Against this dire backdrop, Pope Francis has called for debt cancellation to be a focus of the Jubilee. In the papal bull that proclaimed the Holy Year, Pope Francis wrote, “If we really wish to prepare a path to peace in our world, let us commit ourselves to remedying the remote causes of injustice, settling unjust and unpayable debts, and feeding the hungry.”
Debt relief can take many forms, including grants, debt cancellation, or reduced interest rates. One thing is certain, however: The current approach risks debt spirals that will have serious consequences for the Earth and much of its population.
Thomas Gould is communications manager for the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns in Washington, D.C.
FAITH IN ACTION:
• Explore the Jubilee 2025 Debt Relief Campaign website https://togetherwebelong.caritas.org/
• Share our two-pager “Global Debt Crisis Needs Jubilee” https://mogc.info/GDCNJ
• Read the Misereor report on the Global South’s debt crisis https://mogc.info/GSDM2024
• Learn about the Vatican’s debt relief focus in the 2025 Jubilee year https://mogc.info/jubilee2025
The Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, based in Washington, D.C., is a resource for Maryknoll on matters of peace, social justice and integrity of creation, and brings Maryknoll’s mission experience into U.S. policy discussions. Phone (202) 832-1780, visit www.maryknollogc.org or email ogc@maryknollogc.org.
Featured image: A member of the Maasai pastoralist community walks past his emaciated cattle at a traditional homestead near Bisil, Kenya. (CNS/Thomas Mukoya/Reuters/Kenya)
