As your piece “What we do in the (debt) shadows” highlights (FT Alphaville, February 13), it is laudable to see the IMF and other global actors calling out opaque lending practices and pushing for stronger international frameworks for debt disclosure.
However, externally imposed transparency conditions — such as requiring debtors to disclose and report debts to the IMF — are unlikely to be enough to incentivise governments to do the right thing. We also need to bolster domestic oversight and accountability. Without sufficient political pressure, governments will continue to accept loans with unfavourable terms or dubious public benefits for short-term gain, burdening future generations with increasingly expensive loan repayments.
Information is power, but only when domestic constituencies can use it to hold governments to account. Legislators and national auditors should provide critical oversight of new loans and debt management, ideally in the broader context of development priorities and budget trade-offs. Unfortunately, government budgets often omit critical information on debt during the budget process. According to the most recent Open Budget Survey, only about half of the 120 countries surveyed publicly disclose the government’s total public debt burden in their budget proposal.
Debt information should be accessible to everyone, not just technical experts. Simplified debt reports, such as those published in Cameroon, can explain the government’s debt strategy and policies in ways that encourage public debate. Civil society coalitions, such as the Okoa Uchumi coalition in Kenya, can push governments to both be more transparent and responsive to citizen concerns.
To stop recurring cycles of debt crises, we need homegrown debt accountability systems and not just calls for transparency by global actors.
Sally Torbert
Policy Manager, International Budget Partnership, Tbilisi, Georgia
