G20 plan is ‘thin gruel for debt prisoners’

Date: 13 November 2020

Reacting to today’s announcement of the G20’s Common Framework for debt treatments, Daniel Willis, campaign manager at Global Justice Now said:

“Covid-19 has left many countries around the world in a debtors’ prison. Today rather than setting them free, the G20 have offered an hour of exercise and a bowl of thin gruel. If anything it will extend the sentence.

“Zambia stands on the brink of default, with private lenders like Blackrock, JP Morgan and AllianceBernstein refusing to agree even to a delay in payments.(1) The G20’s framework will do nothing to change this.

“We are a long way from the end of the economic consequences of this pandemic. At best, countries like Zambia can now look forward to new IMF loans which will bail out the banks for their reckless lending, and come with austerity strings attached which will heap further suffering onto their people. We need far, far better than this.”

Notes

1. Zambia on brink of defaulting on foreign debt, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-54928836.

For Zambia’s creditors see ‘Under the radar: Private sector debt and coronavirus in developing countries’, https://www.globaljustice.org.uk/resources/under-radar-private-sector-debt-and-coronavirus-developing-countries