The Way Ahead on Debt: Reform, Resilience, and Leadership in a Fragmented World

Debt sustainability has re-emerged as a central fault line in the global economy, shaped by rising interest rates, slowing growth, climate shocks, and an increasingly fragmented geoeconomic landscape. 

Strategic competition, weakened multilateral cooperation, and diverging creditor interests have made coordinated solutions more difficult, even as debt vulnerabilities across the Global South continue to deepen. At the same time, borrower countries have become more assertive and coordinated, placing debt reform firmly on the agenda across the G20, the Financing for Development process, and the climate negotiations.

Against this backdrop, the webinar will look ahead to the next phase of global debt reform as the international community moves toward COP31 and a new cycle of G20 and G7 discussions. It will explore how emerging and more inclusive spaces – particularly within the United Nations and the follow-up processes of the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, including the Borrowers’ Club and the Seville Forum on Debt – can help overcome fragmentation, align incentives among diverse actors, and translate momentum into delivery.

The discussion will focus on practical pathways for reform, including what is politically and economically feasible in the short and medium term.

The webinar will also honour the legacy of Shamshad Akhtar, founding Co-Chair of the Debt Relief for Green and Inclusive Recovery Project – a distinguished development economist, Pakistani and global public servant whose leadership and lived experience profoundly shaped international debates on debt, development, and economic justice.

Speakers

• Dr. Ulrich Volz, Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre for Sustainable Finance at SOAS, University of London and Co-Chair of the DRGR Project
• Dr. Kevin P. Gallagher, Professor of Global Development Policy and Director of the Boston University Global Development Policy
• Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, United Nations Special Envoy on Financing the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda
• Dr. Stephany Griffith-Jones, Professor Emeritus at IDS, University of Sussex and Financial Markets Director at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, Columbia University; former Vice-Governor of the Central Bank of Chile
• Dr. Penelope Hawkins, Officer-in-Charge, Debt and Development Finance Branch UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD)

Moderator

• Maria Fernanda Espinosa, Executive Director of Global Women Leaders for Change and Inclusion, former President of the 73rd UN General Assembly and DRGR Co-Chair

The event is organised by the SOAS Centre for Sustainable Finance and the Debt Relief for Green and Inclusive Recovery Project.