Antigua and Barbuda leads campaign to unlock crucial debt services mechanism

PRESS RELEASE

NEW YORK, 1st May, 2025…Antigua and Barbuda is intensifying its campaign for the full operationalisation of the global Debt Sustainability Support Service (DSSS).

The DSSS was launched in Antigua and Barbuda as one of the foundation pillars of the Antigua and Barbuda Agenda for SIDS (ABAS), the ten-year framework document that came out of the SIDS4 Conference. A Strategic Advisory Group for the initiative is co-chaired by Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister the Hon. Gaston Browne and President of the Madlives Dr. Mohamed Muizzu.

The crucial next step is activation of the financial mechanism, where the DSSS can be used as a tool by small and vulnerable states like Antigua and Barbuda to bring relief to their paralyzing debt burden that continues to suppress their economic growth.

Antigua and Barbuda’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Walton Webson was in Washington last Friday for the annual IMF/World Bank Spring meetings where he spoke at a high level roundtable on the operationalization of the DSSS. He used the opportunity to reflect on a number of key milestones where the DSSS has already earned meaningful support from many countries.

“…it is now being actively considered by Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries, and Fragile and Conflict-Affected States – many of whom face the same traps of climate vulnerability, cost capital and debt distress,” Ambassador Webson explained.

But the reality for these vulnerable countries, he stressed, has reached frightening proportions where the severe climate events are forcing states to borrow at high interest to recover.

“We are penalized by credit rating systems that ignore our climate vulnerability and our fiscal discipline,” Ambassador Webson told his audience. He therefore detailed a five tier strategy that SIDS and their partners need to pursue in ensuring that the DSSS can be operationalized in the shortest possible time.

Listed among his suggestions was  the establishment of the Institutional homes for each DSSS component and engaging new partners from both the private sector and philanthropy that would bring their capital, innovation and capacity building resources to the initiative.

Ambassador Webson also suggested that the DSSS needs to be positioned as a global solution to climate-debt-development challenges in major fora like the upcoming Finance for Development Conference, FfD4, the G20 and at COP30.

“The DSSS provides a practical pathway to re-price risk, expand access, and deliver climate finance at scale through instruments that respond to vulnerability and reward resilience,” he emphasized.

Joining Ambassador at the meetings in Washington was Second Secretary at the Antigua and Barbuda Mission, Jerri-Anne Jeremy.