From Private Profit to Public Power Financing Development, Not Oligarchy

Extreme Inequality is Derailing Global Development

A decade ago, the world’s countries agreed to a vision of what the common good looks like—the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—and a plan to finance that vision—the Addis Ababa Action Agenda. Ten years later, the SDGs and the Addis Agenda are failing.

Misguided Faith in Private Finance

Various and influential multilateral and bilateral development institutions have long pushed for greater involvement of the private sector in the provision of public services.

Instruments like “public-private partnerships” (PPPs) and concepts like “blended finance” and “de-risking” became ubiquitous, despite critics’ concerns that this amounted to shedding the pretension of funding development, in favor of serving as a conduit for private capital’s ambitions.

A Debt Crisis Exacerbated by Private Creditors

Along with the rush to put private financial actors in the center of the development architecture directly, certain private creditors have also played a key role in holding back development efforts, particularly by exacerbating sovereign debt crises in order to generate profits and enrich wealthy investors.

Indebted countries transfer $90 billion more annually to private creditors than they receive—undermining public services and disproportionately enriching wealthy investors in the Global North.