Every country deserves to step onto a level playing field, with the freedom to invest in its people and meet their needs.
The world is living through the worst debt crisis in 35 years, and it’s no accident. The rules are written to favour lenders, tipping the game towards banks, oil-traders and hedge funds. Meanwhile, nine in ten debt contracts between lower-income countries and private lenders are governed by UK law.
Level the playing field
Add your name to our petition to help cancel unjust debt
We want fair play, on and off the pitch.
Cancelling unjust debt would mean:
More than 40% of government spending freed up in Senegal
100,000 more children in school in Côte d’Ivoire
More money for education and healthcare in Tunisia
For 90 minutes the pitch is level. The rest of the time, many of the countries playing this summer are pinned in their own half by a system rigged from the start. This is felt in missed schooling, under-resourced hospitals, stalled climate action, and shrinking opportunity for the next generation.
The UK’s justice system is the referee, the rulebook, and the home ground for global private lending. We have an open goal to change the rules for nine in ten of the world’s debt contracts.
“The debt levels are so high in Senegal that the government doesn’t have the means to invest properly in education, health or social security.”
—Souleymane Gueye, FRAPP
One side we’re all on
It takes a team to win a match. It takes thousands of us to change the rules. Share this campaign, bring more people onside, and help us call the final whistle on unjust debt.
Unjust debt is debt which has been contracted unfairly, undemocratically, or is undermining basic human rights like the right to good quality healthcare and education. Click here to read more about unjust debt and the debt crisis.
Lenders and borrowers should have shared responsibility to ensure that debts are contracted and spent fairly and responsibly. But all too often, lenders shirk their responsibilities and exploit those who need to borrow. This process locks people and countries in a debt trap, meaning they have to borrow more money just to service growing debt burdens, at the expense of lives, livelihoods and wellbeing.
Countries in crisis have struggled to get debt cancelled because private lenders have been refusing to agree to the same terms as other lenders. Instead, these financial giants have been dragging out negotiations as they hold out for big profits – at the expense of millions of people living in countries in debt crisis.
90% of the debts owed to financial giants by lower-income countries are overseen by UK law, this means parliament could pass a debt justice law that would force private lenders to take part in debt cancellation.
This law could:
- Make sure that no private lender could sue a country for more than they would have got if they had taken part in debt restructuring through existing agreements
- Prevent private lenders from suing while debt relief negotiations are taking place.
The other place which governs debt contracts is New York. The New York Assembly is already considering bills that aim to achieve the same outcomes as a debt justice law in the UK.
We are working closely with campaigners in New York to push for reforms that would win justice for all countries in debt crisis, and working with allies globally in calling for a new global agreement on debt cancellation, that would end the cycle of debt crises, overseen by the United Nations.
The statistics on this page and throughout the campaign are drawn from internationally recognised sources, including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and national budget documents, alongside original analysis by Debt Justice.
% of government revenue spent on…
External debt
This is the average for 2024-2027, as external debt payments can vary significantly from year-to-year. External debt payments are all principal and interest payments to people and institutions in other countries.
For 2024 external debt payment data comes from the World Bank International Debt Statistics database, and government revenue from the IMF World Economic Outlook database.
For 2025-2027, external debt payment as a % of government revenue data comes from IMF documents for that country.
Both these sources usually base external debt on the currency it is owed in, rather than who it is owed to. If debt owed in domestic debt to people and institutions outside the country were included, payments would probably be higher.
For high income countries there is no international source for external debt payments. For these countries, Debt Justice has estimated the figures using IMF data on overall government interest payments, World Bank data on share of government debt which is external, national level data on overall government principal payments each year, and IMF data on government revenue.
Education and health
This is data for 2025, usually the most recent year available. Government revenue data comes from the IMF World Economic Outlook database. Government spending on education and health comes from national budget documents.
Debt pressure
Critical = external debt payments averaging over 20% of government revenue between 2024 and 2027.
High = external debt payments averaging over 15% of government revenue between 2024 and 2027.
Medium = external debt payments averaging over 10% of government revenue between 2024 and 2027.
Low = external debt payments averaging under 10% of government revenue between 2024 and 2027.
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External debts paid to…
Multilateral creditors are institutions owned by several governments. The largest are the IMF and World Bank and regional development banks such as the Asian Development Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and African Development Bank.
Other governments are governments other than the debtor. The largest government lenders are China, Japan and France.
Private creditors are any lender owned by the private sector. They include thousands of bondholders, commercial banks and oil traders.
Data is the average for 2024-2027 and is from the World Bank International Debt Statistics database. Data is not available for high income countries. For high income countries it is likely that virtually all the external debt is owed to private creditors. The one significant non-private creditor for high income countries is its own Central Bank, but this is domestic, not external, debt.
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Interest rate on new private borrowing
This is an estimate of the theoretical interest rate on new borrowing from private lenders. The estimate assumes borrowing in US dollars and repaying in 10 years’ time.
The estimate is based on current bond yields for that country’s debt. Where a country does not borrow in US dollars, we have used calculations to convert the interest rate into an equivalent in US dollars. For example, the UK borrows in pound sterling, which has higher inflation expectations than US dollars. The UK can currently borrow at 4.9% interest in pound sterling, but the equivalent rate in US dollars is around 4.5%.
Because these are estimates, and ever changing in international bond markets, figures have been rounded to the nearest 0.5%.
Where a country has no internationally traded bonds, we have not calculated a figure.
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Change in public spending
For some countries we have calculated how public spending has changed over time. This is a calculation of real public spending (ie, taking account of inflation), not including interest payments, per person in the country. It is calculated from government spending data in IMF country documents, and inflation and population data from the IMF World Economic Outlook database.
In some cases, we have calculated the change in spending on healthcare and education. Again, this is in real terms per person. Inflation and population data come from the IMF World Economic Outlook database. Spending on healthcare and education comes from national budget documents.
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Human Impact
The Universities of St Andrews and Leicester have made a tool calculating what revenue governments could save, and what outcomes this could lead to, if external debt payments were reduced to 10% of government revenue. Their tool, the GRADE Simulations, is available here.