Bond reacts to Foreign Secretary’s calls for global financial reform at IMF-World Bank Annuals

Today, 14th October 2026, UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband has called for urgent reform to a global financial system that keeps low-income countries trapped in cycles of debt and poverty. 

Speaking at the IMF-World Bank Group Annual Meetings in Bangkok, the Foreign Secretary signalled his ambition to using the UK’s upcoming G20 presidency to lead on much-needed fixes to the global economic system. This includes an overhaul of the G20 Common Framework for Debt Treatments, to ensure it can provide meaningful debt relief, and action to compel private creditors to participate in debt restructuring negotiations. 

Bond is calling on the UK government to seize the historic opportunity provided by its upcoming G20 presidency to lead on transformations that will improve people’s lives, both in the UK and around the world, and a build stable, prosperous and resilient world economy. 

Reacting to the Foreign Secretary’s remarks, Romilly Greenhill, CEO of Bond, the UK network for NGOs, said: 

“We warmly welcome the Foreign Secretary’s call to fix a broken financial system that too often traps lower-income countries in cycles of debt and poverty. The Foreign Secretary’s ambition to fix the debt system by overhauling the G20 Common Framework in order to provide faster and more sustainable debt relief is also very encouraging.

To truly ensure private lenders play their fair part in debt relief, we urge the government to consider UK legislation that compels private creditors to participate in debt restructuring negotiations, and prevent holdout behaviour that slows and blocks efforts to provide genuine debt relief.

With over 50 countries already unable to pay back high interest loans, many of them held by large private lenders under English law, it’s time for action. The UK’s G20 presidency is a unique opportunity to drive progress on some of the world’s most pressing challenges, tackle the debt crisis, and build a fairer global economic system for us all.”

 Notes to Editors:

1. Bond have policy experts in Bangkok available for interview and comment – please contact Emily Loynes at 07909947850 or [email protected] to arrange.
2. For more information on the global financial reforms the UK should champion during its G20 presidency, please see Bond’s briefing here.
3. The Foreign Secretary also outlined areas of focus for the UK’s private capital mobilisation agenda. Bond and its members are urging the UK government to root this agenda in robust evidence, and ensure that capital is contributing to sustainable economic transformation. For more information on Bond’s work on the UK’s private capital mobilisation agenda, please contact [email protected]. 
4. For more information on the opportunity provided by the UK’s G20 presidency to reform the global debt crisis, please see a briefing by Debt Justice here.
5. Bond unites and supports a diverse network of over 330 civil society organisations from across the UK, and allies to help eradicate global poverty, inequality and injustice.