We are honored to announce that the policy brief “Time to Implement a Tech-Driven Sovereign Debt Transparency Initiative: Concept, Design, and Policy Actions” has been published by the Task Force 8: International Financial Architecture, of the T20.
The policy brief has been co-authored by Prof. Rym Ayadi, member of the T20 Task Force 8, Professor at The Business School (formerly Cass) and President of EMEA, and Prof. Emilios Avgouleas, Chair International Banking Law and Finance, University of Edinburgh, and member of EMEA Advisory Board.
The paper assesses the key debt transparency initiatives promoted by international organizations and the private sector, given the June 2019 G20 Communique on the importance of improving debt transparency for debt sustainability. The communique also supported the IMF–WBG approach for addressing emerging debt vulnerabilities and endorsed the Institute of International Finance’s (IIF) voluntary Principles for Debt Transparency.
The authors propose a tech-driven private-public debt transparency initiative to enhance debt transparency and management in low-income countries (LICs) and lower-middle-income countries (LMICs). This initiative should utilize technological innovation in financial market infrastructure through the introduction of a multilateral collaborative platform/debt registration depositary that would be powered by blockchain technology. New debt issues registered through the platform would allow the close tracking of borrowed fund usage. Information held on the platform would be made accessible to all key players and the public to improve debt transparency and accountability in LICs and LMICs. Debt transparency can, in turn, foster the prudent management of borrowed money by relevant governments, thus limiting corruption.
The Think 20 (T20) is an engagement group comprised of think tanks whose primary challenge is to add value to the G20 process with evidence-based public policy proposals.