Working Group on Guiding Principles on Responsible Borrowing and Lending

About

In the Sevilla Commitment, UN member States reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening responsible borrowing and lending, an important element of preventing debt crises and promoting a development-oriented debt architecture.  They mandated the United Nations Secretary-General to convene a Working Group to propose a consolidated set of guiding principles and proposals for their implementation, building on the UNCTAD Principles Promoting Responsible Sovereign Lending and Borrowing (UNCTAD Principles), the G20 Operational Guidelines for Sustainable Financing (G20 Guidelines), and other relevant principles and guidelines (paragraph 48 (a) of the Sevilla Commitment)

Implementation of the mandate

The Working Group commenced its work in September 2026. It will propose a coherent and integrated framework on borrower and creditor responsibilities as well as options for monitoring and enhancing adherence and implementation of the principles. The experts will also contribute to consultation and consensus-building to support widespread uptake of the principles among the relevant stakeholders.

The United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs and United Nations Trade and Development provide secretariat support to the Working Group. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank serve as observers to the Working Group. 

Read the Terms of Reference

Milestones

The Working Group will present an initial report with its proposals to Member States at the 2027 Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Forum on Financing for Development Follow-up (FFD Forum) (link to the FFD Forum page) and will present its final report at the High-level Dialogue on Financing for Development in September 2027.  

Timeline for the tasks of the Working Group (2026-2027)

Image

Experts

The UN Secretary-General appointed experts across legal, economic and financial expertise considering both borrower and creditor perspectives and balancing regional representation and gender. The Working Group members are serving in their personal capacity and were selected in accordance with their expertise in sovereign debt.

The Working Group is led by two Co-Chairs, Daniel Bradlow, Professor at the University of Pretoria and Emeritus Professor at the American University Washington College of Law and Deborah Zandstra, Partner at Clifford Chance and Head of its Sovereign Debt Advisory. 

Read the Biographies of the Experts

To advance its mandate, the Working Group is organizing its substantive work under two Workstreams: Workstream 1 (Borrower and Creditor Responsibilities Workstream) focuses on developing a coherent and integrated framework on borrower and creditor responsibilities and Workstream 2 (Monitoring, Implementation and Outreach Workstream) focuses on proposing options to strengthen adherence and implementation of the principles.  

The Workstreams have commenced their deliberations and meet monthly. The full Working Group will convene every two months to review progress and exchange perspectives.

Contact details of the Secretariat

Working Group Secretariat: wg-debtprinciples@un.org