Soaring debt is blocking climate action in Southern Africa
13/06/2024
New research shows that the countries most vulnerable to the climate crisis – nine of which are in Southern Africa – face soaring debt payments, making it harder to recover from and prepare for extreme weather events.
To coincide with the climate meetings happening in Bonn, Germany, from 3-13 of June 2024 ahead of COP29, a coalition of organisations headed by Debt Justice released a briefing on why debt justice is key to financing climate action around the world.
The research found that the world’s 50 countries most vulnerable to climate change, including nine in Southern African – Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia – are facing soaring debts to a level not seen for over 20 years and are spending four times more on external debt payments than in 2010.
Rooted in decades old unjust structures of poverty and debt, the reasons for this spike are many, from COVID-19 to the strength of the dollar, but rising natural disasters such as floods and hurricanes are also fuelling debt. As Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley has said: “Many assume that small island developing states and developing countries have large debt stocks purely because of corruption and profligacy, when in truth and in fact… a lot of that debt has come as a result of the climate crisis”.
The rising debt is also forcing many countries to exploit their natural resources, such as fossil fuels, in order to pay off these debts.
Southern Africa faces significant risks due to climate change. As reported by CNN in April 2024, more than 24 million people in the region face hunger, malnutrition and water scarcity due to drought and floods.
Zambia, for example, will pay out at least £353 million this year despite a severe humanitarian crisis caused by droughts, heatwaves and floods. Under this deal, if Zambia’s economy does better than expected, it will pay more, but it has no opportunity to pay less if hit by devastating natural disasters, such as the unprecedented floods in February 2023 and the ongoing drought and heatwaves.
ACTSA Director Tricia Sibbons said “This is important research by Debt Justice and others showing the link between the unjust debt crisis and climate action, which Southern Africans know well. Southern Africa – especially countries such as Zambia – face growing environmental hardship and natural disasters, which in many ways is caused by and worsened by the legacies of colonialism. Despite grand promises by the Global North, it is more crippling debt rather than support that they are straddled with, and they are then castigated for being forced to resort to exploiting natural resources. Reforming the global debt system is key if we want countries to be able to recover from and prepare for the impacts of the climate crisis – and to be able to invest in greener projects and policies”.
For more on the money being drained from Southern Africa due to unjust debt practices, you can read our report Money Drain: https://actsa.org/money-drain/
Join the call for Zambia’s debt to be more fairly restructured and some of the debt cancelled here: https://act.debtjustice.org.uk/blackrock-zambia