New Rules for a Broken System

International financial institutions, or IFIs—especially the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF)—are part of a system that was established 80 years ago. And since then, these organizations haven’t changed much, including in terms of their governance structures and who has a seat at the table. This has led to a system that doesn’t meet the needs of many countries, including many in the...

The concept of sovereign debt sounds really simple. A country borrows money—usually from other countries, big public banks, or private institutions. And then it pays that money back, with interest. But the reality of sovereign debt is much more complicated, because the rules are stacked against countries that borrow money, many of which are in the global south. This has led to the situation where...

The rules of global governance have come to cement a power structure between the global north and the global south that has allowed a legacy of injustice and exploitation to fester, even to the present day. Over the next three episodes, we’re going to explore more deeply what the current economic system looks like and the ways people are pushing back and demanding a more equitable balance of power...

There’s an undercurrent of deep concern in the development world, and the debate about how to solve these issues is urgent. In a special three-part series recorded live at the United Nations 4th International Conference on Financing for Development, hear from people who think that in order to solve the problems we face, the current global economic system needs to be fundamentally reimagined. New R...