South Africa has been an important battleground for the odious debts’ movement since 1997 when the Alternative Information and Development Centre (AIDC) published its groundbreaking report, Challenging Apartheid's Foreign Debts. The publication represented the beginning of a powerful campaign to write off the "odious debts" incurred by the apartheid regime.

In the report, AIDC argues that two central components must be examined when determining whether a country's debts are "odious" under international law. Those are: a) the legitimacy of the borrower's purpose in seeking the loan; and b) whether the lender was recklessly indifferent to the status of the contracting state. The report concludes that no loan to the apartheid regime could have had a legitimate purpose because apartheid itself was illegitimate (as recognized by several international bodies including the UN and the International Court of Justice). Furthermore, AIDC provides powerful evidence to establish that creditors knowingly supported the apartheid regime by providing loans that were used to oppress the country's black population.

During South Africa's widely hailed Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearings both the African National Congress and the AIDC challenged the TRC to consider the issue of reparations in the context of the doctrine of odious debts. Since that time, many others have continued the campaign to write off the country's "odious debts," including Jubilee 2000 and Desmond Tutu's successor, Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane. Finally, debt campaigners have targeted specific lenders in their calls for debt cancellation (see "an open letter to the Swiss President").