A new report by leading economists calls for urgent action and systemic reforms to address the mounting debt and development crises affecting billions of people around the world.
Titled The Jubilee Report: A Blueprint for Tackling the Debt and Development Crises and Creating the Financial Foundations for a Sustainable, People-Centered Global Economy, the document was authored by Pope Francis’ Jubilee Commission—a group of more than 30 global experts led by Nobel laureate and Columbia University Professor Joseph Stiglitz and former Argentina Minister of Economy and Columbia University Professor Martín Guzmán.
The report highlights the links between the global debt crisis and worsening development outcomes.
It reveals that 54 developing countries now allocate 10% or more of their tax revenues solely to interest payments.
Across the developing world, average interest burdens have nearly doubled in the past decade
This debt burden diverts critical resources away from investments in health, education, infrastructure, and climate resilience—robbing millions of life-saving services, adequate nutrition, and job opportunities.
The report presents both a moral and practical imperative: global finance that must serve people and the planet—not punish the poor in favor of protecting profits.
Its key recommendations include:
- Improving debt restructuring processes to incentivized timely and sustainable agreements between creditors and debtor governments.
- Ending bailouts to private creditors; the International Monetary Fund should reform its policies to support genuine recoveries rather than providing de facto bailouts or enforcing harmful austerity.
- Strengthening domestic policies by encouraging developing countries to utilize capital account regulations that prevent destabilizing financial flows.
- Enhancing transparency by promoting financial practices that are open and backed by public consensus.
- Reimagining global finance through comprehensive reforms to the international financial architecture to support sustainable development.
Nobel laureate and Columbia University Professor Joseph Stiglitz, co-leader of the commission, stated:
“There is growing consensus among experts that the current debt system serves financial markets—not people. This threatens to condemn entire nations to a lost decade, or worse. Now is the time for responsible action.”
Professor Martín Guzmán, also co-leading the report, emphasized that the debt crisis is crowding out essential investments and worsening economic and social conditions across the Global South:
“Pope Francis’ call was a moral act of timely leadership. In this Jubilee year, a coalition of the willing must act to tackle the debt and development crises—or else inequality of opportunity will rise, and instability will spiral, with far-reaching consequences.”
The report outlines immediate proposals to respond to the crisis and offers a long-term blueprint for restructuring the global financial system in favor of development.
Fr. Charlie Chilufya, S.J., Global Justice Advocate with Jesuits Africa, underscored the human cost of the debt crisis.
“Debt burden is a system that allows creditors to get paid while children go hungry, schools remain closed, and hospitals are starved of medicine and staff.”
He added: “In 2023, African governments spent 16.7% of their revenues on servicing debt—the highest among developing regions. Fourteen percent of export earnings went to debt service in 2023, up from just 4.5% in 2011.
When nations must choose between paying bondholders and saving lives, and the world stays silent, that silence is complicity.
We see this every day in Africa. Spending more on debt than on health and education combined isn’t just inefficient—it’s immoral.”
Pope Francis’ appeal for global debt relief, now carried forward by Pope Leo XIV, is reflected throughout the report, which combines robust economic analysis with a strong moral call to action.
The report’s findings will be discussed at the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development in Seville, Spain (June 30–July 3), and featured at major global gatherings, including the UN General Assembly in New York City this September and the G20 Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, in November.
Victoria Ibanga