DEBT INC. - The cambodian microfinance machine

Debt Inc. is an investigative documentary examining the role of international and European financial institutions in Cambodia’s microfinance crisis.

Investigative journalist Claire Stam traces the human cost of Cambodia’s booming microfinance sector and the international money that helped fuel its expansion. With a loan portfolio equivalent to roughly 30% of the country’s GDP, the sector has been linked to widespread over-indebtedness, coerced land sales and other human rights abuses. More than 167,000 Cambodian households have sold land to repay microloans, alongside documented cases of food insecurity, child labour and debt-related suicides.

The film follows the financial chain from Cambodian borrowers to the institutions and investors backing the sector, combining stories from affected families with interviews with human rights representatives from FIAN Germany and OECD Watch, leading academics Dr. Frank Bliss and Dr. Milford Bateman, journalists Jack Brook and Gerhard Klas, and Oikocredit CEO Mirjam ’t Lam.

By bringing together the experiences of borrowers with the perspectives of those financing and scrutinising the system, Debt Inc. asks a central question: who is accountable when investments made in the name of development contribute to harm?

That question has taken on new urgency. In June 2026, the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO), the independent accountability mechanism for the World Bank Group’s private-sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), concluded that the IFC had failed to comply with aspects of its Sustainability Policy in connection with investments in six Cambodian financial institutions providing microfinance. The investigation identified shortcomings in protections for poor and vulnerable borrowers, grievance mechanisms, and safeguards for Indigenous Peoples and their lands.

The IFC Board subsequently approved a management action plan but rejected the CAO’s finding of policy noncompliance, stating that there had been “no policy noncompliance” under its Sustainability Policy. The decision has drawn criticism from Cambodian civil society organisations and Human Rights Watch and renewed questions over accountability and remedy for borrowers affected by Cambodia’s microfinance sector.

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PUBLIC RELEASE - OCTOBER 06, 2026

The full documentary will be available to watch free on YouTube

FROM STRANGLED TO DEBT INC.

STRANGLED

Debt Inc. builds on our earlier documentary, Strangled, which examined Cambodia’s microfinance crisis through the experiences of families trapped in over-indebtedness.

While Strangled focused on the human consequences of predatory lending, Debt Inc. follows the money upstream, investigating the international financial institutions and investors that helped fund the industry’s expansion.

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