
Illustration by Sebastien Thibault
People-Powered Solutions: Connecting Local Communities and Global Challenges
Champions of Fair Labor: Ensuring Worker Rights and Economic Justice
Guardians of the Public Square: Protecting Civic Engagement
Climate Justice Cultivators: Strengthening Community Land and Resource Rights
Global South Architects: Rethinking Sovereign Debt and Global Finance
Public Interest Innovators: Advocating for the Public Good in Global Tech
Defenders of Dignity: Building a Safe and Gender Just Future for Al
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.
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.

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.

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.”

Shaking Off the Shackles of Sovereign Debt
The sovereign debt crisis is fueling economic collapse and immense challenges across the Global South. Ford, NAWI Collective, and International Development Economics Associates surface new solutions for debtors and creditors…

Opinion: The G20 Must Follow Civil Society’s and Social Movements’ Lead
The 2024 G20 meetings hosted by Brazil established a trend of centering civil society voices at this global fora. At the 2025 G20, South Africa must continue this momentum.

Opinion: The Future of Global Governance Is Collective, Not Top-Down
At the 2023 United Nations General Assembly, Ford encouraged leaders to embrace new thinking and collaborative action and reexamine power they wield.

Ford Foundation Announces $15 Million Commitment to Advance Global Disability Rights
Advancing disability rights accelerates equality worldwide. Ford pledges $15 million to disability rights and targets 25% of all grantmaking to be inclusive of people with disabilities.
Themes
Illustrations by Sebastien Thibault