Debt relief Francis's calls will go unheard in Washington

The proportion of eastern and southern African countries that have cut social spending since 2022

- Heather Stewart

Pope Francis's vast funeral in Rome on Saturday featured a certain amount of politicking amid the splendour. If the meeting between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump results in progress towards a less inequitable peace than the one currently envisaged by the US, perhaps that will be fitting, given the late pontiff's consistent calls for an end to war.

But in Washington last week, at the IMF and World Bank, campaigners struggled to find much backing among the powerful for another aspect of Francis's worldview - his calls to make 2025 a Jubilee year of debt forgiveness for the world's poorest countries.

A quarter century on from the hugely consequential Jubilee 2000 movement - in which churches played a major role - the pope had asked a commission to report on the issue next month. Debt relief is also likely to be discussed at the UN Financing for Development conference in Seville in late June.