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The World Bank’s response to COVID-19

29 October 2020 - by Susan Engel, Nadeen Madkour, Owain Williams

The COVID-19 pandemic hit a world already struggling to find the fiscal space to adequately fund health and other social services. In this context, it is important to note that the World Bank’s long-term approach to healthcare has severely (...)
Debt, Distress, Suicide

17 August 2020 - by Ahilan Kadirgamar

When someone takes their own life, it is the ultimate consequence of great distress. But the specific causes for such tragic endings are never clear, and are often compounded by a myriad set of factors. How does one understand the struggles of a (...)
Tackle the Household Debt Pandemic- Cancel Debt! Create Common Credit!

30 May 2020 - by Amali Wedagedara, Ermiza Tegal

The onset of island-wide curfew since mid-March delivered a blow to the economy of working people. Millions of working people lost their jobs, or had wage cuts. Small farmers could not sell their harvest or sell it at a decent price. Fishers (...)
As the World Bank Puts Aside Past Wisdom on Public Spending, Will Sri Lanka Pay Heed?

20 April 2020 - by Ahilan Kadirgamar, Devaka Gunawardena

The COVID-19 pandemic is changing the way we think about the world. Even neoliberal global institutions must reckon with the changes. The World Bank’s South Asia Focus Report on the impact of COVID-19 on South Asian economies that was released a (...)
Into the Great Economic Abyss

7 April 2020 - by Ahilan Kadirgamar

Societies across the world are facing tremendous challenges. And on March 31, 2020, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the situation as follows: “We are facing a global health crisis unlike any in the 75-year history of (...)
“Life and Blood of our country, but we only have debt!”

5 March 2020 - by Amali Wedagedara

More than 700 women from 14 districts came to Colombo on February 27 to protest against government inaction on the microfinance debt crisis. Recalling a popular election slogan during the last Presidential election they demanded that the promise (...)
In Sri Lanka, Resistance to Private Indebtedness is a Strategic Issue

3 March 2020 - by Nathan Legrand

In Sri Lanka, the issue of private indebtedness — in particular in the form of microcredit — is a major problem that negatively affects borrowers and their families, but also society as a whole. The influence of microfinance in Sri Lanka is such (...)
Debt in Times of Economic Crisis

2 March 2020 - by Ahilan Kadirgamar

Debt relief is now a call at all levels of state and society in Sri Lanka. The Prime Minister recently requested a three-year moratorium on debt repayments to India, the Government earlier announced a debt repayment moratorium of one year for (...)
MONLAR: Micro credit sharks drove 200 poor borrowers to suicide during last three years

2 March 2020 - by Rathindra Kuruwita

About 200 people had committed suicide, during the last three years or so, as they were unable to pay back the micro-credit loans and many of those organisations had obtained the services of village thugs to recover money Chinthaka Rajapakshe, (...)
IMF: Inhuman at the micro and macro levels

27 February 2020 - by Eric Toussaint

Hiruni, a fisherman’s wife, who has to manage her household (of five people) with an income of about 2.5 euros (= 500 Sri Lankan rupees) per day, is heavily indebted. In order to increase her household income, she borrowed 50,000 rupees (250 (...)
Feminisation of micro credit

20 February 2020 - by Nalini Ratnarajah

The eighth CADTM South Asia regional workshop was successfully held in Colombo (Sri Lanka) from February 18-19, 2020 with participants from Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Morocco, Belgium and France. Around forty delegates, representing (...)
Message from Juan Pablo Bohoslavski, the UN expert on Debt and Human Rights, to the 8^th CADTM South Asia meeting in Colombo

19 February 2020 - by Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky

Dear colleagues and friends, I am pleased to have the opportunity to share this message on the occasion of 8th South Asian CADTM Regional Meeting. The topics discussed during this meeting are indeed important ones and while sometimes simply (...)
International situation and Radical Alternatives

18 February 2020 - by Eric Toussaint

On 18 February 2020, in Colombo, 8th CADTM South Asian workshop We are facing a multidimensional crisis of the global capitalist system Economic crisis : Stagnation or recession in Europe; recession in Japan; slowdown in the US economy; (...)
No quick fixes to solve household debt crisis!

22 December 2019 - by Amali Wedagedara

Thanks to elections, rural debt problem has reappeared as a prominent issue in the public domain. While some candidates have vouched to cancel the rural debt, others have pledged to find solutions to rural indebtedness and agrarian crisis. Such (...)
Trapped in a debt cycle

27 September 2019 - by Gihan D Chickera

The entrapment of rural communities, especially rural women, in a vicious debt cycle generated by thousands of unregulated microfinance organizations has reached epidemic proportions, affecting almost three million people island-wide. Once seen (...)
Microfinance has been a nightmare for the global south. Sri Lanka shows that there is an alternative

12 September 2019 - by Ahilan Kadirgamar, Niyanthini Kadirgamar

The global hegemony of finance capital is based on burgeoning household debt accompanied by devastating dispossession. This is more evident in peripheral societies, where state investment in the rural economy is abandoned for the myth of (...)
Sri Lanka: Does microfinance really empower women?

2 October 2018 - by Cat’s Eye

As women were deemed to be thrifty, able to manage with meagre resources and responsible borrowers, they became the targets for such predatory lending. We are witnessing large protests across the war-torn regions in the north and east, urging (...)
Microfinance: Does it empower women?

18 September 2018 - by Independent collective of feminists

We are witnessing large protests across the war-torn regions in the north and east, urging the Government to restrict the activities of microfinance companies offering loans to poor women at exorbitantly high interest rates. Women’s groups in (...)
Submission to the Independent Expert on foreign debt and human rights By Civil society organizations in Sri Lanka

12 September 2018 - by Collectif

This submission to the Independent Expert on Foreign Debt and Human Rights comes at an important juncture in the trajectory of Sri Lanka’s socio-political and economic development. In 2015 the country took a definitive turn after the (...)
The political cost of IMF programmes

17 August 2018 - by Bretton Woods Project

Summary - Political ramifications of IMF programme in Jordan trigger protests - Jordanian prime minister resigns - Developments raise broader questions around IMF conditionality In June, King Abdullah II of Jordan accepted the resignation of (...)
Sri Lanka: Debt Trap and Mega Development

14 August 2018 - by Ahilan Kadirgamar

Sri Lanka’s foreign debt is again talk of the town. Is the country overly indebted to China? Are we borrowing too much from international capital markets? Or are we financing ourselves into trouble with multi-lateral agencies like the (...)
Report on CADTM activities in Sri Lanka and India, 6 - 19 April 2018

15 May 2018 - by Eric Toussaint

Several articles were published in French, English, Spanish and Portuguese on the CADTM website; they focused on the successful 7th regional workshop of CADTM South Asia, that was held in Colombo, Sri Lanka, from 6 to 8 April 2018. As Nathan (...)
Taking a close look at the growing household...

4 May 2018 - by Amra Ismail

Taking a close look at the growing household debts in the North and East It is opined that there should be debt counselling or a service whereby debtors can come to an amicable settlement with the (...)
“Stop Repaying Illegitimate Debt”

4 May 2018 - by Eric Toussaint, Amra Ismail

While in Colombo, Sri Lanka, for the 7th CADTM South Asia workshop in April, Éric Toussaint was interviewed by the Daily Mirror, a major Sri Lankan daily newspaper. He answered questions on illegitimate debts, China’s Belt and Road Initiative, (...)
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 (...)