Leaders such as President Mahama of Ghana are building the architecture for a new kind of international cooperation—a global reset anchored in country-led growth powered by domestic resources and private investment. On its face, however, that inspirational message appears in sharp contrast to economic reality. More than half of developing countries face liquidity and financing challenges that are making it difficult to finance basic expenditures, let alone the investment needed for growth. As global borrowing costs soar, the current crisis of fiscal space and affordable financing risks morphing into a new wave of full-blown debt crises.

The outlook is not hopeless, the commentary argues. Working together, international financial institutions, borrower and creditor countries, and private actors have the power to prevent a wave of crises and enable countries with ambitious investment and reform plans to pivot to a higher and sustained growth path. The question, as finance leaders gather in Bangkok for the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) Annual Meetings—the annual gathering of member countries' finance ministers and central bank governors—is whether they will rise to meet the moment.

Unprecedented debt burdens crowd out growth

Even before the latest spike in global borrowing costs, most developing countries faced unprecedented debt service burdens. Following a series of global shocks, the average developing country now spends more than 10% of its revenue on interest on debt—nearly double the burden of a decade ago—crowding out investment for growth. In ten countries, interest payments eclipse the entire public investment budget. Debt also acts as a ceiling on private investment, further stifling growth.

The results are stark. In the decade to 2015, real per capita incomes in Sub-Saharan Africa grew by about a fifth. In the decade since, they have not grown at all.

The squeeze is set to worsen. A wall of Covid-era, low-cost external borrowing is coming due just as global borrowing costs have skyrocketed, while sources of affordable financing have evaporated.

A lifeline that falls short

Under the status quo, international financial institutions have served as an essential lifeline. But while the IMF and multilateral development banks—government-backed international lenders such as the World Bank—have provided countries with enough to avoid widespread default, they have stopped short of what is needed to get countries back to growth or enable them to rebuild resilience.

Because G20 creditors—the group of major advanced and emerging economies—have continued to pull money out, much of the new multilateral funding has effectively gone straight back out the door to pay back creditors. China, for example, shifted from a net provider of finance to a net extractor over the last decade. As post-Covid debts mature, a record share of poor countries net-repaid the IMF in 2026—a drain set to widen by 2030.

Absent action, around 40 of the world's poorest countries will face a stark choice: make further sharp cuts to spending at significant cost to growth and human lives, or finance government deficits and debt rollovers through exorbitant private borrowing that is likely to lead to eventual default. Both roads lead to crisis, with debt-to-GDP spiraling upwards because growth is falling, because debts are rising, or both. Living standards stay stagnant and social unrest keeps rising.

The IMF itself has recognized the problem. Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva recently told G20 finance ministers that “high refinancing needs and rising debt-service costs are constraining many developing economies… limiting their capacity to finance critical spending on infrastructure, health, and education, which undermines growth and, in turn, debt sustainability.”

A growth initiative, not a debt initiative

Counterintuitively, for most countries, drawing a line under this crisis does not require a debt initiative—it requires a growth initiative. Long-overdue improvements to the debt restructuring process remain crucially important for the handful of countries that need debt stock reduction. But more than 40 countries currently struggling with financing and liquidity challenges do not have debt stocks that require imminent restructuring. Rather than waiting until they need a restructuring, a new toolkit is needed—one that restores sustainability through dedicated support for growth.

Such a reset would replace a piecemeal drip of financing with a coordinated and decisive surge. It would also require creditor countries to recognize that supporting this surge—rather than using it to exit—is in their interest, since growth is the surest way to get repaid. And it would call for support to ensure that future private debts are spent on growth-enhancing investments, more transparently managed, and less shock-prone.

The Rockefeller Foundation, a philanthropic organization, has just published a policy proposal that details how a Growth and Investment Reset could work, developed in partnership with leading experts.

A question of political will, not money

Fundamentally, the Reset is not a question of money but of political will. Resources already positioned at international financial institutions, combined with innovative financing mechanisms developed over the past five years, mean that the Reset could cost donors very little—a small fraction of the large-scale restructuring that will ultimately be needed if no action is taken.

As finance leaders meet in Bangkok, they should urgently discuss how to end the cycle of dependency. High-ambition leaders building a new model of development deserve a high-ambition international financial system with the capacity to enable them to get there. The window is still open—but it is closing rapidly.

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