To break the vicious cycle of unsustainable sovereign debt, protect human dignity, and defend national sovereignty, the “Break Free from Debt” campaign calls for urgent systemic reform. This reform is built around three main demands directed at world leaders and the international financial architecture.
1. Ending the Injustice: The Debtors’ Forum
We must create the “Borrowers’ Forum,” an international space where indebted countries of the Global South can speak with one voice, unifying their positions to have greater strength when negotiating with creditors. This proposal, advanced at the Seville Conference on Financing for Development and backed by the G20 in 2025, is fundamental to balancing the historical power asymmetry in debt negotiations.
When countries negotiate separately, creditors hold all the power. A unified forum would help developing nations learn from one another, access technical support, and negotiate better terms. AHF is ready to support the implementation of this proposal.
2. People Before Interest: Mandatory Debt Pauses
We demand guaranteed automatic, interest-free pauses on debt payments in all loan agreements when countries face public health crises or climate disasters. A nation’s resources during a crisis must go toward protecting its people, not fulfilling financial obligations.
Every dollar sent to a creditor during a crisis is a dollar that never reaches a classroom, a missing vaccine, a young person without work, or a family in need. Loan contracts must include immediate pauses during public health emergencies or climate disasters, ensuring that funds remain in the country to acquire essential medical supplies and products and support recovery efforts.
3. AI to Relieve Debt: A 1% Solidarity Contribution
We propose using Artificial Intelligence to relieve debt, advancing a global 1% solidarity levy on capital investments and revenues of major AI companies. These new resources would fund debt relief and provide essential public goods for the Global South, ensuring that new technological wealth benefits all of humanity.
Artificial intelligence is driving a new wave of global wealth creation, overwhelmingly concentrated in the wealthiest countries and companies. While AI billionaires multiply their wealth, countries in the Global South are cutting schools and hospitals to pay debts to the very same financial system that enriches them. The people most affected by public debt are often also those most at risk of having their jobs replaced by AI. This demand simply means that new wealth must contribute to supporting those who are left behind.
A Call to Action
What we need is political will and global mobilization to accelerate the implementation of these demands. Your voice matters to amplify these demands and drive change. Debt injustice is a human rights problem that requires an urgent and coordinated response from the international community.
