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Damning testimonies of microcredit abuse

25 April 2018 - by Eric Toussaint, Nathan Legrand

Contrary to what is often claimed, microcredits are not a way out of poverty; on the contrary they most often result in a greater deprivation and humiliation of their victims. On the Indian sub-continent 65 million people have taken on a (...)
India: Thriving Usury in Tirunelveli

23 April 2018 - by S. Aadhirai

The recent self-immolation of a family in Tamil Nadu drew widespread attention to the issue of usury prevalent in the state. Following a hearing on the depositions of 60 borrower victims at a people’s tribunal in Tirunelveli district, an attempt (...)
European Parliament sounds the alarm over developing world debt crisis

20 April 2018 - by Mark Perera

The number of poor countries facing major debt crises has doubled since 2013, and only 1 in 5 are now considered to be at low risk of crisis. With some countries in the midst of crisis and others on the brink, meeting the Sustainable Development (...)
Crony capitalism looms large on the Indian banking horizon

18 April 2018 - by Sushovan Dhar

The $1.77 billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam, possibly the biggest financial chicanery to have hit the Indian banking sector, is rocking the nation. Perpetrated by a diamond tycoon in collusion with bank officials, defrauding India’s second (...)
Is Pakistan falling into China’s debt trap?

16 April 2018 - by Abdul Khaliq

• Pakistan will have to payback $100 billion to China by 2024 of total investment of $18.5 billion, which China has invested on account of bank loans in 19 early harvest projects, under CPEC. • China has become the biggest lender to Pakistan after (...)
Pro-poor or anti-poor? The World Bank and IMF’s approach to social protection

13 April 2018 - by Stephen Kidd

In recent years, the World Bank and IMF have played an influential role in shaping national social protection policies. Social protection comprises a significant share of World Bank loans, reaching almost 10 per cent of lending to low-income (...)
The World Development Report produced by the World Bank almost completely ignores workers’ rights

12 April 2018 - by Peter Bakvis

The World Bank decided last year to devote the 2019 edition of its flagship annual policy review publication, the World Development Report, to the theme of the future of work. Preparation of the WDR 2019 encountered some delay after the ouster (...)
Senegalese economist Ndongo Samba Sylla: “the Continental Free Trade Area is a mistake” (Interview)

4 April 2018 - by Ndongo Samba Sylla, Maghreb Emergent

The economist Ndongo Samba Sylla is the author of the following books, among others: The Fair Trade Scandal: Marketing Poverty to Benefit the Rich and La démocratie contre la République: l’autre histoire du gouvernement du peuple. He tells Maghreb (...)
Mozambique forced to restructure after debt default

27 March 2018 - by Abayomi Azikiwe

Economic growth proves unsustainable for the Southern African state of Mozambique in present world situation due to financial implications that have been going on for some time now. Since 2014 many energy producing emerging states in Africa (...)
The Central Bank of Uganda Comes Clean About Looming Debt Distress

26 March 2018 - by Mary Serumaga

Uganda has finally admitted that there is an increasing likelihood that the country will default on its debt obligations. The (Central) Bank of Uganda issued the warning in the first quarterly State of the Economy Report of 2018. The public (...)
Developing country debt payments increase by 60% in three years

22 March 2018 - by Jubilee Debt Campaign

Figures released today by the Jubilee Debt Campaign, based on IMF and World Bank databases, show that developing country debt payments increased by 60% between 2014 and 2017. They are now at the highest level since 2004. Government external (...)
South Africa: Cyril Ramaphosa Relaunches Neo-Liberalism

28 February 2018 - by Patrick Bond

After Jacob Zuma’s Firing, South Africa Risks Budget Austerity and Even Renewed BRICS ‘Poisoning’ Cyril Ramaphosa’s soft-coup firing of Jacob Zuma from the South African presidency on February 14, after nearly nine years in power and a humiliating (...)
The Fate of the Revolution

22 February 2018 - by Nathan Legrand

Tunisia’s ruling class is pursuing the same economic policies as the authoritarian regime it replaced. In the first half of January, a wave of protests spread across Tunisia. Most observers say that the new finance law, implemented at the (...)
The Doing Business Report: a longstanding controversy

5 February 2018 - by Gino Brunswijck

Recent criticism of Chile’s ranking in the Doing Business Report (DBR) has once again put the report in the spotlight, with renewed calls for scrapping the highly controversial annual World Bank publication. Over the years Eurodad has (...)
New Evidence of Africa’s Systematic Looting, From an Increasingly Schizophrenic World Bank

5 February 2018 - by Patrick Bond

A brand new World Bank report, The Changing Wealth of Nations 2018, offers evidence of how much poorer Africa is becoming thanks to rampant minerals, oil and gas extraction. Yet Bank policies and practices remain oriented to enforcing foreign (...)
The Roots of the Egyptian Crisis

16 January 2018 - by Joel Beinin

Egypt’s current crisis highlights the flawed foundations of its post-revolutionary state. But liberal nostalgia for the days of the monarchy is equally misplaced. ohamed Bouazizi, a long-suffering and dispossessed farmer turned street vendor, (...)
Final declaration of the Maghreb seminar: ‘Free trade’ agreements and food sovereignty

2 January 2018 - by ATTAC/CADTM Morocco

On December 15, 16 and 17, 2017, ATTAC Morocco, a member of the global network for the abolition of illegitimate debts (CADTM), organized a Maghreb seminar on free trade agreements, agriculture and food sovereignty under the slogan: No to (...)
A New Wave of Water Privatisation in Indonesia

1 January 2018 - by Irfan Zamzami

The central government of Indonesia has repeatedly announced its intention to universalise access to clean water by 2019. To achieve this, an estimated 27 million new connections are needed, with a major investment gap of IDR 274.8 trillion (...)
The Bamako Seminar, The CADTM network reinforces the struggle against illegitimate debt !

27 December 2017 - by Nathan Legrand, Fatima Zahra El Beghiti

The CADTM International network delegations met in Bamako, Mali, from 15 to 25 November 2017 to follow several political training and coordination activities. Indeed the third “women, debt and microcredit” seminar, the annual CADTM training (...)
The revival of the Commonwealth: an opportunity for further exploitation or a time to correct past wrongs?

22 December 2017 - by Mary Serumaga

The Origins of the Commonwealth ‘Commonwealth’ is a word being heard with increasing frequency in the post-Brexit era. It had always been used to refer to the British Empire – first to Australia in the 1890s and later to other territories. From (...)
How the Bank’s push for microcredit failed the poor

19 December 2017 - by Milford Bateman

Popularised in the 1980s by the work of future (in 2006) Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Muhammad Yunus, the microcredit model was seen as the most awe-inspiring local economic development model of all time. The disbursement of a simple microloan (...)
Debt sustainability review: Tinkering around the edges while crises loom

19 December 2017 - by Tim Jones, Mark Perera

Under the joint Debt Sustainability Framework (DSF) of the World Bank and IMF (Bretton Woods Institutions or BWIs), regular assessments of the risk of external debt distress are conducted for all countries that are eligible to borrow from either (...)
Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Least Developed Countries (LDCs)

18 December 2017 - by Sudhir Shrestha

When Belt and Road Forum (BRF) was held on May 14-15, 2017 in Beijing, four Least Developed Countries (LDCs), namely Cambodia, Ethiopia, Laos and Myanmar, sent their highest level of delegation as their support to the Belt and Road Initiative (...)
The Odious Iraqi Debt

12 December 2017 - by Eric Toussaint

This article, originally written towards the end of 2003, is now published on our website for the first time in English. The odious Iraqi debt is still under-documented today, though it is highly relevant in our research and our proposals (...)
The case for repudiation of Uganda’s public debt

8 December 2017 - by Mary Serumaga

Uganda is in imminent danger of defaulting on its debt repayment obligations. The Auditor General notes in 2017 that interest payments on the public debt exceeded legal limits (15% of the annual budget) and are likely to be unsustainable going (...)