The Alternative Finance Working Group is a collective of activists, researchers, and community leaders dedicated to challenging the structures of global finance that perpetuate inequality and dependency. Our mission is to reveal how the current financial system—shaped by powerful institutions, creditor nations, and profit-driven actors—undermines the sovereignty and well-being of countries across the Global South.
Why Alternative Finance?
The climate crisis is a crisis of justice. While the Global South bears the brunt of climate impacts—droughts, floods, food shortages, and forced migration—wealthy countries and corporations continue to profit from extractive industries and polluting practices. The Paris Agreement promised a new era of climate finance, but the reality is stark: only a quarter of climate funds reach the Global South, and most come as loans, deepening debt and dependency.
Our research shows that developed countries, historically the largest polluters, are not contributing their fair share. Financial pledges like the $800 million Loss and Damage Fund fall far short of actual needs, and the biggest climate finance mechanisms, such as the Green Climate Fund, have failed to deliver substantial resources for real project implementation.
But the issue runs much further than climate fiannce alone: Despite promises of support and development, most financial flows to the Global South come as loans, not grants, deepening dependency and limiting the ability of countries to invest in social priorities and sustainable futures. The architecture of global finance is not neutral—it is a system that systematically transfers wealth from the many to the few.
Our Demands
Robust accountability: We demand frameworks to monitor the delivery and impact of climate finance, ensuring funds are used efficiently and transparently.
- Grants, not loans: Climate finance must not increase the debt burden of developing countries. Public and grant-based resources are essential for adaptation, mitigation, and resilience.
- Polluter Pays Principle: Developed countries must contribute their fair share, reflecting their historical responsibility for emissions.
- End fossil fuel subsidies: Redirect energy taxes and subsidies to support the poor and promote sustainable, low-carbon development.
- Transparent and accountable funding: Climate finance mechanisms must be accessible, equitable, and tailored to the needs of vulnerable and marginalized communities.
- Strengthen institutions and cooperation: Ministries of Finance must be empowered to address climate change, and regional partnerships must be deepened.
What We Do
We mobilize through media campaigns, outreach, training, and research. Our partners include grassroots organizations, women’s coalitions, justice networks, and research institutes across Africa and beyond. Together, we build movements, shape policy, and hold governments and corporations accountable. Our focus is on building alternatives to the current financial and development models, centering social and ecological imperatives over profit.
Our action plan includes:
- Media and Awareness: Public campaigns and information-sharing to raise awareness about the injustices of global finance and the urgent need for transformation.
- Mobilization and Solidarity: Outreach efforts that build connections and solidarity across diverse coalitions, empowering communities to advocate for fair and equitable financial systems. In March 2025, we convened a regional workshop in Bangkok, Thailand, to interrogate the crisis of development and finance, the retreat of public funding, and the rise of private creditors.
- Research and Advocacy: Supporting studies and policy work focused on debt, development, and financial justice, ensuring that evidence and lived experiences inform our strategies and demands. Following recent global summits, we produced a collective declaration calling for urgent, equitable, and accountable financial systems that prioritize the needs and rights of developing countries and vulnerable communities.
Why It Matters
The Alternative Finance Working Group is a space for radical imagination and collective action. We fight for a world where finance serves people, not profit; where debt is not a tool of control, but a challenge to be overcome; and where the voices of the Global South lead the way in building just and sustainable futures. We call on all actors—governments, corporations, civil society, and communities—to join us in demanding a global financial system that delivers justice, equity, and real transformation.
Learn more about our work:
As a group, we focus on research and building global alliances to mobilise around and advocate for just aarn more about our work:
Next to popular mobilisation, research plays a central role in our efforts to strengthen and scale up alternative finance. Our research capacity involves:
- A global synthesis report on climate finance
- A position paper post-COP30 with demands for globally just climate finance
This is available on our publications site.
