The Global South is being forced to choose creditors over children

What the report says

In an Al Jazeera opinion article published July 25, 2026, Ilan Kapoor argues that the international debt system is undermining education across much of the Global South by placing creditor repayment ahead of public services for children. Citing new UNESCO figures, the article says 113 countries, home to 6.1 billion people, now spend more on debt service than education. In low-income countries, debt payments are described as nearly four times education spending, while 18 highly indebted countries spend at least five times more on debt than schools.

Kapoor links these pressures to visible effects such as crowded classrooms, weaker infrastructure, teacher shortages, fees that families cannot afford and children leaving school early. The article also cites World Bank data saying developing countries transferred $741 billion more to external creditors between 2022 and 2024 than they received in new financing, including a record $415 billion in interest payments by low- and middle-income countries in 2024.

The piece discusses UNESCO’s proposal to expand debt-for-education swaps, under which creditors reduce or restructure debt in return for government investment in education. It notes examples involving France and Ivory Coast, Germany and Egypt, and Spain and Peru, but says such arrangements are limited because they depend on creditor consent and cover only part of what countries owe.

Kapoor calls for broader reforms, including large-scale debt cancellation for distressed countries, automatic payment suspensions during economic or climate shocks, cheaper concessional finance and a binding United Nations framework for sovereign debt restructuring. The article is an opinion piece, and Al Jazeera notes that the views are the author’s own.