In order to restore ground access to communities that had been severely impacted by deadly flash flooding and landslides earlier this week, workers in Uttarakhand state, India’s Uttarakhand, constructed a makeshift bridge across a gorge. In the Himalayan region, rescuers have been using helicopters to evacuate residents.
The United States did it again. Just a week before the United Nations Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development in Seville, the Trump administration walked out, pulling out of negotiations and refusing to attend the world’s most important conference for coordinating how countries finance sustainable development. It was a dramatic, if familiar, abdication of responsibility. And although the rest of the world adopted the Seville Commitment (Compromiso de Sevilla) outcome document by consensus, the result was far from bold.
Wealthy creditor nations pushed back against a proposal to establish a meaningful UN-led process for addressing debt distress among lower-income countries. The document’s most ambitious provisions on debt triggered formal objections from the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, and others. Their resistance made it painfully clear that transformational change in the global financial system will not come with wealthy countries in charge. If low and middle-income countries are to secure the resources and policies they need to invest in their futures, they should take a page from rich countries’ playbook: organise into a club to protect their own interests.
The global economy is held back by a destabilising disconnect between creditor-led promises and borrower realities. The poorest and most vulnerable countries paid a record $96.2bn to service their external debt in 2023, according to the World Bank, with interest costs surging to $34.6bn. More than half of low-income countries are in or near debt distress. Governments are being forced to shift limited public resources away from health, education, infrastructure and climate adaptation to repay debt taken on during periods of low interest rates and looser global financing. These countries may not yet be defaulting on their debt obligations, but they are defaulting on development. The question now is not whether the system must change, but who will lead that change. As UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed put it, it is time to “flip the orthodoxy”.
By pooling resources, sharing data and coordinating strategies, debtor countries could begin to shift the balance of power and negotiate from a position of collective strength. A Borrower’s Club offers a path towards a more equitable and strategic approach to debt and development. Without it, governments will remain constrained by a system that drains public resources, weakens institutions, and limits progress on everything from healthcare to climate resilience.
The mounting debt pressures facing the Global South reflect a financial system that consistently disadvantages borrower countries. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), at least half of low- and middle-income countries spend more than 10 percent of their tax revenues on interest payments alone. More than 3.3 billion people live in countries where debt service outpaces health spending, and more than two billion people live in countries where education receives less funding than creditors. These pressures are worsening. Loans taken out during the era of ultra-low interest rates are now being refinanced at far higher costs, even as global growth slows and government revenues stagnate. With development assistance falling and financing conditions tightening, public budgets across the Global South are stretched to breaking point.
This is not the first time the world has faced a debt crisis. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) spearheaded the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative and the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI), securing debt write-offs for dozens of low-income countries and enabling increased investment in poverty reduction. But those programmes were narrow in scope, slow to implement and left many struggling countries behind. More recently, the G20 introduced the Common Framework for Debt Treatments, intended to offer a coordinated process for restructuring debt. Yet only a few countries have used it, and none have completed it with a durable solution. The process remains opaque, creditor-dominated, and too sluggish to meet the urgency of the current crisis.
In a recent report, economists Joseph Stiglitz and Martin Guzman outlined one of the most credible reform agendas yet proposed: a detailed framework for restructuring sovereign debt that includes longer loan maturities, lower interest rates, and, when necessary, reductions in principal. Their approach is designed for today’s more complex creditor landscape, where commercial lenders and non-traditional actors like China play a major role. But even the best technical proposals need political backing. A Borrower’s Club could help consolidate and amplify these ideas, enabling debtor countries to move in concert rather than in isolation.
By aligning strategies, sharing information, and speaking with one voice, such a club could help shift the balance of power and turn sound reform proposals into actionable policies. It would mirror tactics long employed by wealthy creditors, who have historically coordinated through clubs of their own: the Paris Club, the G7, the G20. Even private lenders have the Institute of International Finance (IIF) to safeguard their interests. Borrowers rarely have comparable collective leverage. A club could begin to change that.
To work, a Borrower’s Club will need political champions, a shared strategy and a clear mandate. It must also confront real challenges. Some governments may hesitate to publicly align themselves with a coalition of heavily indebted countries, fearing market or political backlash. Finance ministers in distress may worry about signalling weakness. There are also complex questions about how to involve major creditors, including private bondholders and lenders such as China. Chinese loan contracts often include confidentiality clauses that prevent borrowers from disclosing their existence or terms, complicating transparency and coordination. What incentives could joint repayment arrangements offer? How would the club interact with the International Monetary Fund or World Bank, whose cooperation is helpful but never guaranteed?
Answering these questions will take coordination and creativity. One option could be to establish a standing borrower-led secretariat to provide technical assistance, legal support and shared data infrastructure for joint negotiations. Participation in the club could be conditional on adopting a transparency commitment, long demanded by civil society. To bring in new lenders, the club could offer pooled repayment mechanisms or third-party trustees, reducing risk for creditors while protecting the fiscal space of borrower nations. Multilateral institutions may not welcome a shift in bargaining power, but they cannot afford to ignore it either.
The idea is not new. In the 1980s, Latin American countries launched an early initiative to coordinate as debtors and increase their collective bargaining power. That effort quickly fell apart as creditors isolated key countries and weakened their unity. Today, however, the context is different. Borrowing countries face shared global shocks, more diffuse creditors, and a fractured international financial order. Efforts by Global South coalitions such as the Organisation of Southern Cooperation and economists like Grieve Chelwa show that momentum is building for borrower coordination. With more data, more cooperation, and more experience, a Borrower’s Club formed today could avoid past missteps and build real influence.
Coordination is never easy, and some governments will be cautious. But with debt burdens rising, budgets under pressure and global financial governance stuck in gridlock, the greater risk is doing nothing. Creditors have had their clubs for decades. It is time borrowers had one, too.
Pakistani security forces have killed 33 fighters who tried to cross into the southwestern province of Balochistan from neighbouring Afghanistan, the military says, describing them as “Indian-sponsored” separatists.
Pakistan’s military said in a statement on Friday that an overnight operation took place in the Zhob district of Balochistan province, where soldiers spotted “Khwarij”, a phrase the government uses for Pakistan Taliban fighters.
The fighters were intercepted and engaged with “precise” fire, the statement said, adding that weapons, ammunition and explosives were recovered.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif praised the security forces for what he called a successful operation.
“Our brave soldiers risked their lives to foil this infiltration attempt and crushed the nefarious designs of the terrorists,” the prime minister was quoted by the Associated Press of Pakistan as saying.
Separatist fighters demanding mineral-rich Balochistan receive a bigger share of profits from its resources have stepped up attacks in recent months, particularly on Pakistan’s military, which has launched an intelligence-based offensive against them.
Pakistan often accuses the Taliban government in Afghanistan of turning a blind eye to fighters operating near their shared frontier. Kabul denies the charge.
The Pakistani military said on Friday that those killed had the backing of India although it offered no evidence to back up the allegation.
Pakistan and India often accuse each other of backing armed groups. New Delhi denies supporting fighters in Pakistan and has not commented on the latest incident.
The nuclear-armed neighbours with a history of conflict continue to engage in war rhetoric and have exchanged fire across the Line of Control, their de facto border in disputed Kashmir, after an attack in Pahalgam killed 26 civilians in India-administered Kashmir on April 22.
On Friday, the government in Balochistan suspended mobile phone internet service until August 31 for security reasons before Thursday’s Independence Day holiday, which celebrates Pakistan gaining independence from British colonial rule in 1947.
In recent years, separatist fighters in Balochistan have targeted people selling national flags before the holiday.
Balochistan has for years been the scene of a rebellion by separatist groups along with attacks by the Pakistan Taliban and the outlawed Balochistan Liberation Army.
The separatists demand independence from Pakistan’s central government in Islamabad.
Pakistan has witnessed a surge in armed attacks, most claimed by the Pakistan Taliban, who are known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and are allies of the Afghan Taliban.
The TTP is a separate group and has been emboldened since the Afghan Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021. Many TTP leaders and fighters have found sanctuary in Afghanistan since then.
China’s President Xi Jinping has told Russia’s Vladimir Putin he is pleased to see Moscow maintain contact with the United States to advance a political resolution of the Ukraine crisis.
The remarks during a phone call between the two leaders on Friday come after the Kremlin said President Putin would meet US President Donald Trump in the coming days.
During the phone call, Xi said China would maintain its stance on the need for peace talks and a diplomatic solution to the Russia-Ukraine war, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported.
The Kremlin said Putin had called his Chinese counterpart to update him on the latest US-Russia talks, during which Xi expressed support for a “long-term” solution to the Ukraine conflict.
The call between Xi and Putin was their second in less than two months. Putin is expected to visit China in September for events marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.
The two countries have further bolstered their economic, trade and security cooperation since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which triggered a sharp deterioration in Moscow’s relations with the West.
China has never denounced Russia’s war nor called for it to withdraw its troops, and many of Ukraine’s allies believe that Beijing has provided support to Moscow. Beijing insists it is a neutral party, regularly calling for an end to the fighting while also accusing Western countries of prolonging the conflict by arming Ukraine.
Trump has voiced growing frustration with Putin over the lack of progress towards peace in Ukraine and has threatened to impose heavy tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil, including China.
The US president on Wednesday said he could announce further tariffs on China similar to the 25 percent duties he has already imposed on India over its purchases of Russian oil.
In response to those remarks, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said on Friday that Beijing’s trade and energy cooperation with Russia was “just and legitimate”.
“We will continue to take reasonable measures to ensure energy security based on our own national interests,” Guo Jiakun said in a statement.
Putin and Trump are set to hold talks, although no firm date or venue has been set. Both sides have confirmed preparations for a summit are under way and have suggested that a meeting could take place next week.
China has been mentioned in media reports as a possible venue for the Putin-Trump summit, with speculation that Trump could join Putin there in early September.
The Kremlin also said Putin had spoken to the leaders of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and briefed them on talks he held with US envoy Steve Witkoff on Wednesday.
Putin also discussed Ukraine in a phone call with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Friday, the Belarusian state news agency BelTA reported.
Indian President Narendra Modi also held a phone call with Putin to discuss the situation in Ukraine and bilateral relations.
“Had a very good and detailed conversation with my friend President Putin. I thanked him for sharing the latest developments on Ukraine,” Modi said on X.
The Indian president added that he looked forward to hosting Putin in India later this year, without specifying the date.
Had a very good and detailed conversation with my friend President Putin. I thanked him for sharing the latest developments on Ukraine. We also reviewed the progress in our bilateral agenda, and reaffirmed our commitment to further deepen the India-Russia Special and Privileged…
The calls came amid rising hopes for a breakthrough in the Ukraine war, now in its fourth year. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Friday that a pause in the conflict could be close, after speaking to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Tusk said Zelenskyy was “very cautious but optimistic” and that Ukraine was keen that Poland and other European countries play a role in planning for a ceasefire and an eventual peace settlement.
“There are certain signals, and we also have an intuition, that perhaps a freeze in the conflict – I don’t want to say the end, but a freeze in the conflict – is closer than it is further away,” he told a news conference on Friday. “There are hopes for this.”
Trump’s efforts to pressure Putin into stopping the fighting have so far delivered little progress. Russia’s bigger army is slowly advancing deeper into Ukraine while it relentlessly bombards Ukrainian cities. Russia and Ukraine are far apart on their terms for peace.
Almost two weeks ago, Trump moved up his ultimatum to impose additional sanctions on Russia, as well as introduce secondary tariffs targeting countries that buy Russian oil, if no Kremlin moves towards a settlement were forthcoming.
According to US Vice President JD Vance, who attributes the absence of a “functional government” to the US’s failure to recognize a Palestinian state. Vincencia and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy were in southern England for a meeting.
Today on The Stream, five ‘Blue Zones’ host some of the healthiest, longest-living people. What’s behind their longevity?
Blue Zones are five diverse regions where people live longer and stay healthy into their 90s and 100s. Their secrets? Mostly plant-based diets, daily natural movement, strong social ties, and a clear sense of purpose. These simple, sustainable habits keep people active and resilient. As the modern world faces chronic illness and ageing populations, the Blue Zones offer practical lessons on how we might live longer, healthier, and more fulfilling lives.
Presenter: Stefanie Dekker