[This is an excerpt from an article in The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs and Policy Studies. Opinions do not reflect the position of the editorial board.]

When Hurricane Melissa struck Jamaica as a Category 5 storm in late October 2025, it activated several instruments designed for precisely such events, including a World Bank-arranged catastrophe bond and the regional facility operated by CCRIF SPC (formerly the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility). In 2024, Grenada triggered a hurricane clause in its sovereign bond after Hurricane Beryl, suspending scheduled interest payments. Climate-resilient debt instruments are no longer an experiment. They function in Commonwealth small states, and the question for the Antigua and Barbuda Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in November 2026 is whether the Commonwealth will treat them as the standard rather than the exception.

The Commonwealth contains 33 small states and over 20 small island developing states, the very constituency for whom climate-resilient debt clauses (CRDCs) were designed. Adoption remains uneven. The United Kingdom, through UK Export Finance, has offered a CRDC template in its sovereign loans (UK Export Finance, Citation2023). The World Bank issued its CRDC product note (World Bank, Citation2024). The Inter-American Development Bank now offers similar terms, and Japan piloted CRDCs in lending to Pacific Island states in May 2024 (Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Japan International Cooperation Agency, Citation2024). On the borrower side, Barbados, Grenada and the Bahamas have CRDCs in privately placed bonds. Most bilateral lending to Commonwealth members in the Pacific and Indian Ocean, however, does not include such clauses, and Chinese policy-bank loans rarely do. The technical drafting has matured, supported by the Sustainable Sovereign Debt Hub (Sustainable Sovereign Debt Hub, Citation2026). The instruments exist. What is missing is a coordinated Commonwealth position.

Two objections recur. The first is that CRDCs raise borrowing costs. The 2022 UK-chaired Private Sector Working Group concluded that they are broadly ratings-neutral, and secondary trading in Barbados and Grenada bonds has not borne the cost objection out (International Capital Market Association, Citation2022). The second is that contingent clauses crowd out grants. They do not. CRDCs release fiscal space at the moment of disaster, in addition to concessional finance, not in place of it (Landers & Aboneaaj, Citation2023).

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CHOGM 2026 in St John’s, under the theme ‘Accelerating Partnerships and Investment for a Prosperous Commonwealth’, offers a natural forum for a Commonwealth Debt Resilience Compact. Three planks are needed. First, a model Commonwealth CRDC, drafted by the Secretariat with the Sustainable Sovereign Debt Hub, which all Commonwealth borrowers commit to seeking by 2028 and which all Commonwealth official creditors, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, India and Singapore, commit to offering. Second, operational support through Commonwealth Meridian, the Secretariat’s debt management platform, which is used by more than 40 countries and which Sri Lanka adopted in October 2024 (Commonwealth Secretariat, Citation2025). Meridian can track triggers, suspended cash flows and disclosure obligations across the membership in a way no comparable system can. Third, a coordinated Commonwealth position at the Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Annual Meetings, and the Financing for Development follow-up process, building on the multidimensional vulnerability index work so that CRDCs are priced as ratings-neutral.

The practical path is short. The Commonwealth Secretary-General, Shirley Botchwey can task the Secretariat to publish a draft Compact by the September 2026 Commonwealth Finance Ministers Meeting. Prime Ministers Mia Mottley of Barbados and Gaston Browne of Antigua and Barbuda, working with the United Kingdom and Canada, can carry it into the leaders’ communiqué. Antigua is the right place, and 2026 is the right year. The challenge of governing sovereign debt in a climate-disrupted world is large, but the Commonwealth has the opportunity to lead and to set the terms on which its small states borrow.

Charles Ho Wang Mak, University of Bristol Law School, Bristol, UK.