Global South Architects: Rethinking Sovereign Debt and Global Finance

The current system of global governance is not serving the needs of the Global South. Developing nations are struggling under immense and unfair debt, preventing them from investing in essential services like public health, education, and climate resilience. Simultaneously, foreign aid is flawed and declining, while the global institutions meant to address these issues are both unchecked and increasingly ineffective.

Stemming this tide requires constructing a people-centered global order powered by Global South leadership, where those experiencing the human consequences of sovereign debt and broken aid systems drive solutions. Through democratic governance and inclusive partnership, we can reorganize the global financial architecture to achieve social and economic justice, ensuring international institutions serve humanity’s majority rather than perpetuate inequality.

A diverse group of men and women stand smiling on a stage, posing for a photo. A large screen behind them reads "Sevilla Platform for Action" and "4th International Conference on Financing for Development, Sevilla 2025." — Global Public Investment Network

The Global Public Investment Network: Reimagining International Public Finance

Traditional international public finance structures continue to harm developing nations, keeping them in deep debt and excluded from decisionmaking processes. The Global Public Investment Network is pioneering a new model where all countries contribute based on capacity, all benefit, and all participate in funding decisions to tackle shared global challenges.

An illustration shows a team of people building a large, white outline of a globe with blue blocks. Some are on ladders or scaffolding, while others push a wheelbarrow, symbolizing collaborative construction and global cooperation.

Global Governance Reimagined

Ford and Foreign Policy reimagine debt architecture, development aid, international financial institutions reform, and other critical issues at the forefront of transforming global governance.

On a clear day, flags from various nations billow in the wind in front of the UN headquarters in New York: a modern rectangular skyscraper.

Guest Essay: A More Inclusive Global Order Is Possible

Ford president Darren Walker discusses how governments, civil society, and the private sector can align around the needs of people and communities to work toward global common good.

“Indeed, countries across the Global South should look to their own people for the way forward, and international institutions must give those people—including members of civil society, movement leaders, and economists—a seat at the table. It is essential that the people most affected by debt burdens have a voice in shaping their way out of them.”

– Martín Abregú, Crystal Simeoni, and Ndongo Samba Sylla