The ‘Third World’ debt crisis trapped countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America in a spiral of debt and impoverishment for two decades. In response, the global Jubilee movement succeeded in winning $130 billion of debt cancellation for 36 countries. Yet the crisis now looks set to repeat itself. Globally loans to the most impoverished countries have doubled in the last 5 years. This lending boom risks a new major debt crisis, which would keep millions around the world locked in poverty.

The problem of developing country debt has fallen off the agenda of British politicians in recent years, sidelined by a focus on short-term ‘sticking plaster’ solutions to poverty in the developing world instead of action to tackle the root causes. This project will sound the alarm about the risk of a new debt crisis, making sure that politicians standing for election in 2015 understand the scale of the threat and what action is needed to tackle the underlying drivers of economic injustice.