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The international financial system is not working for people or the planet. It is holding back development in the poorest countries, generating financial instability, and contributing to increasing global inequality and instability. The debt problems of the poorest countries remain unresolved after 25 years, debt reduction has consistently failed to catch up with what is needed, and now middle-income countries have become prone to new forms of financial crises. As these crises undermine livelihoods, and financial pressures limit the resources available for essential public services, people and countries have found themselves ever less served by finance, and ever more in its service.
Over the last two decades, numerous proposals have been put forward for dealing with particular shortcomings of the international financial system, many of which have broad support in civil society. nef believes that we need to integrate these proposals, maximise the potential synergies between them, and fill the gaps. This will provide the basis for a single complete and coherent proposal for a new international financial architecture which will serve, not undermine, our social and environmental objectives.
re-thinking international finance is building on the foundations of nef’s Jubilee Research programme to develop such a proposal. We are mapping out the issues, current proposals, and support and opposition to them, through an extensive process of consultation with Northern and Southern civil society groups. This process will establish the skeleton of an overarching global network for advocacy on the international financial architecture as a whole. nef is also developing concrete proposals in specific areas, starting with a new framework for dealing with debt crises.
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