Africa's debt: How to break unequal relationships in financing deals - SABC News - Breaking news, special reports, world, business, sport coverage of all South African current events. Africa's news leader.

  • 📰 SABCNews
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 69 sec. here
  • 3 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 31%
  • Publisher: 51%

United States News News

United States United States Latest News,United States United States Headlines

Africa is facing some impossibly difficult choices when it comes to financing its development. Countries need hundreds of billions of dollars each year to meet their climate, poverty, unemployment and inequality challenges.

They cannot meet these needs only from their own resources, grants and concessional sources. They will have to tap international capital markets.Currently, 21 African countries have issued Eurobonds. In 2021, these foreign currency denominated bonds accounted for $144.7 billion of Africa’s total external debt stock of $789.8 billion. The payments due on these bonds will rise from about $5 billion in 2023 to over $10 billion a year in 2024 and 2025.

Instead, bondholder participation in the restructuring is voluntary. This essentially places the sovereign debtor in the position of a supplicant appealing to the kindness of its creditors. The bondholders are likely to show such “kindness” only if they think they can get more money out of the debtor by restructuring the bonds, than by enforcing their contractual right to payment.

The negotiating process further favours the bondholders because it treats the debt contracts in isolation from all the other obligations and responsibilities of the debtor. There is no space to explicitly address the obligations that the sovereign has to its own citizens under its constitutional and legal order, and its international treaties.African debtors and their supporters need to change the dynamics of these debtor-creditor discussions.

Such a framework exists. The DOVE Fund Principles offer a conceptual framework for sovereign debt restructuring that is balanced and respectful of the rights, obligations and responsibilities of all the stakeholders in African debt.First, the parties directly involved in a sovereign debt restructuring can use them to guide their decisions and actions in the debt restructuring.

Responsibility: the outcome accounts for all relevant economic, financial, environmental, social, human rights and governance issues.

 

Thank you for your comment. Your comment will be published after being reviewed.
Please try again later.

South Africa need to fire all members of eskom as faster as possible

Corrupt leaders let this continent down

We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

 /  🏆 37. in US

United States United States Latest News, United States United States Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

Africa: German Investment in Africa Stalls Despite Government PushAnalysis - Germany's potential to invest in Africa was trumpeted at the 2022 German-Africa business summit in Johannesburg. But German foreign direct investment on the continent is stagnant.
Source: allafrica - 🏆 1. / 99 Read more »