• The G20 Common Framework has only reduced the total external debt value of highly indebted low-income countries by 7%, or $13.6 billion.
• Only two of the four countries that applied—Ghana ($9.3B relief) and Zambia ($4.3B relief) —have secured effective debt relief.
• The mechanism's "very mixed track record" has led eligible low-income countries, including African states like Kenya and Sudan, to avoid applying and continue debt repayments.

An analysis published on Thursday, October 9, 2025, by ONE Campaign, an NGO fighting extreme poverty and preventable diseases, found that the G20 Common Framework for Debt Treatment has so far reduced the total external debt value of low-income countries (LICs) classified as debt-distressed or at high risk of debt distress by only 7%.

This analysis specifies that relief offered to eligible countries through the mechanism, created in 2020, totaled only $13.6 billion, while the remaining external debt stock of these countries stands at $171 billion.

Among the four countries that requested the G20 Common Framework for Debt Treatment (Zambia, Ghana, Ethiopia, and Chad), three have completed the process, and two have achieved effective debt relief. Ghana secured approximately $9.3 billion in relief, and Zambia obtained $4.3 billion in relief.

Chad, the first country to request external debt restructuring under the Common Framework in January 2021, reached an agreement in December 2022 on conditional debt treatment with its bilateral public creditors. However, creditors determined the oil-producing nation did not require debt relief due to rising crude oil prices.

Ethiopia, which requested debt treatment in February 2021, has not yet received relief. Negotiations between Addis Ababa and its creditors have stalled, primarily due to the country's deteriorating domestic political situation (Tigray armed conflict) and slow-moving discussions with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on a financing program. Nevertheless, the country and its Official Creditors Committee (OCC) reached an agreement in principle on the main debt treatment parameters in late March 2025.

Eligible Countries Shun Mechanism Due to Inefficiencies

ONE Campaign notes that the very mixed track record of the G20 Common Framework for Debt Treatment pushes debt-distressed LICs or those at high risk of distress to continue servicing their debts rather than resort to the mechanism, which has failed to meet expectations. Many African states, including Kenya, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Cameroon, and Mozambique, number among these eligible but reluctant countries.

The G20 Common Framework for Debt Treatment is a mechanism designed to provide low-income countries with coordinated debt treatments mobilizing a wide range of creditors.

Debt restructuring under this mechanism gathers G20 and Paris Club creditors, along with any other interested bilateral official creditor of a debtor country, into a single Official Creditors Committee (OCC).

The Common Framework aims to help a debtor country achieve a sustainable external public debt trajectory within the context of an IMF program. It reiterates fundamental Paris Club principles, such as a case-by-case approach, the comparability of treatment principle (the debtor country's commitment not to accept debt treatment from other bilateral and commercial creditors on less favorable terms than those agreed with the OCC), and the requirement that all treatment must be based on a financing need defined by an IMF and World Bank Debt Sustainability Analysis (DSA).

Experts and multilateral financial institutions have proposed several reform avenues in recent years to reduce the mechanism's inefficiencies. These include providing candidate countries with a clear timeline, suspending debt service payments during the negotiation phase to create fiscal space, extending eligibility to middle-income countries grappling with unsustainable debt, and including enhanced collective action clauses in all future sovereign debt contracts to address coordination challenges in the restructuring process.

This article was initially published in French by Walid Kéfi

Adapted in English by Ange Jason Quenum