Browsing: Africa’s debt crisis

Africa's natural resources
  • Africa is loosing out on bad minerals for loan deals, AfDB warns.
  • AfDB is developing initiatives to  help countries’ address the bad loans.
  • China alleged to be the leader in bad minerals for loan deals with Africa.

Africa’s natural resources are being traded for loans from international lenders and that is why the continent is underdeveloped, the Head of the African Development Bank, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, has decried.

 

In an interview with The Associated Press in Lagos, Nigeria, Dr Adesina called for an end to “loans given in exchange for the continent’s rich supplies of oil or critical minerals used in smartphones and electric car batteries.”

 

The Head of Africa’s biggest lending bank, AfDB, said some countries have gained control over mineral mining in places such as Congo and have left some African countries in financial crisis owing to such ‘mineral for loans deals.’

 

“They are just bad, first

Debt-for-nature swap in Gabon to revolutionize the economy.

The debt-for-nature swaps concept has emerged as a viable solution to address Africa’s ‘poly-crisis’ marked by debt distress, climate change, and biodiversity loss. In light of this, Gabon recently launched an initiative termed Africa’s first debt-for-nature swap.

The Central African nation intends to buy up at least $450 million of its government debt and convert it into an eco-friendly blue bond. This is with a tender offer for its sovereign dollar-denominated bonds maturing in 2025 and 2031, prompting the Eurobonds to rise as much as 2.2 cents on the dollar.…

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Uganda rallies regional states to rethink expensive debt path

A three-day regional conference on debt management in sub-Saharan African convened in Uganda this week is expected to conclude into signing a paper to be presented at several forums.

The forums will include the next World Bank spring meeting to highlight governments’ discomfort with some conditions tied to loans.

Uganda’s Ministry of Finance acting director for debt and cash policy management, Maris Wanyera, said the conference will be attended by delegates from 16 countries, under the theme “sustainable public debt management and a strengthened economic growth”

She also said that in light of the ongoing borrowing frenzy by African countries to finance their development agenda, the conference is long overdue.

“The idea is to come up with a strategy; a voice we can use while negotiating some of these loans. Debt [borrowing] is not bad at all, as long as we borrow for the right purposes and negotiate well, but …