Follow CAP on Social Media

Listen to the CAP Podcast

The Message From the Global Financial System to Africans Seeking Debt Relief Is Clear: You’re on Your Own

by Eric Olander
A woman wears a blanket printed with the South African national flag as she queues at the Kwa Mai Mai market in the Johannesburg CBD, on April 13, 2020 during food distribution. MARCO LONGARI / AFP

Ghana’s increasingly outspoken finance minister Ken Ofori-Atta is giving voice to the growing frustration across Africa that calls for urgent debt relief have largely failed. In an interview this week with Bloomberg, Minister Ofori-Atta said the global financial system is failing Africa and places an unfair risk premium on African borrowers.

While the latest $1+ trillion financial relief package makes its way through the U.S. Congress, African requests for a mere $100 billion of assistance, a relatively small amount in the current environment, have so far gone unheeded. 

  • Get a daily email packed with the latest China-Africa news and analysis.
  • Read exclusive insights on the key trends shaping China-Africa relations.
  • Full access to the News Feed that provides daily updates on Chinese engagement in Africa and throughout the Global South.

China, Africa and the Global South... find out what’s happening.

Subscribe today for unlimited access.

OR

Already a subscriber? Log in Click Here to Learn More

You Might Like

Vaccine Deliveries in Africa Gain Momentum With New Shipments From Covax, China and J&J’s New Jab on the Way

The world’s first shipment of COVID-19 vaccines supplied by the WHO-led Covax alliance landed at Kotoka International Airport in Accra on Wednesday adding new momentum to the pace of vaccine deliveries on the continent. ...

The Geopolitics of COVID-19

The COVID-19 crisis is proving an interesting case study in the impact of different ways of conducting public diplomacy. Any public diplomacy is dependent on two factors: staying on message, and making sure that message ...

Meaningful Debt Relief Probably Isn’t Going to Happen. We Should All be Worried.

The Financial Times newspaper deserves a lot of credit for calling out the world’s wealthiest governments for their glaring hypocrisy on the issue of African debt relief. While treasuries in the U.S., Europe, ...

What is The China-Africa Project?

Independent

The CAP is passionately independent, non-partisan and does not advocate for any country, company or culture.

News

A carefully curated selection of the day’s most important China-Africa stories. Updated 24 hours a day by human editors. No bots, no algorithms.

Analysis

Diverse, often unconventional insights from scholars, analysts, journalist and a variety of stakeholders in the China-Africa discourse.

Networking

A unique professional network of China-Africa scholars, analysts, journalists and other practioners from around the world.

Subscribe