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Day: February 23, 2021

With Major Repayments to China Coming Due, Kenya’s Debt Servicing Costs Gobble Up More of the National Budget

Beginning in July, Kenya's debt repayment will cross the psychologically important barrier of 1 trillion shillings ($9.15 billion), according to the National Treasury, prompting renewed concerns over the country's ability to sustain a debt portfolio that has doubled in size since 2017.

Analyst: Nigeria on the Cusp of a Debt Crisis, But Loans From China Not to Blame

The Nigerian Debt Management Office on Monday revealed that it has $5.8 billion of borrowed money on its books that it hasn't disbursed. This prompted new worries among some financial analysts that the actual debt-to-GDP ratio has surpassed 100%, meaning that the country has taken on so ...

Chinese Financing to Latin America Fell to Zero in 2020, Providing a Cautionary Tale For Africa and Other Developing Regions

There's new evidence of the dramatic plunge in Chinese overseas development finance. Researchers in the United States found that for the first time in more than a decade, China's two largest policy banks, the China Development Bank and the China Exim Bank, did not ...

China to Provide Egypt With an Additional 300,000 Doses of Sinopharm COVID-19 Vaccine

Minister of Health and Population Hala Zayed announced that China will provide an additional 300,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Egypt in the coming days, the second such donation in as many months. But the Chinese contribution is quite small relative to the 40 million jabs that ...

The Economist: Half of the World’s COVID-19 Vaccine Supply Has Been Reserved for Just 15% of The Population

The Economist produced a compelling visual image that highlights the stark inequity in COVId-19 vaccine distribution around the world and how a disproportionate quantity of jabs are being hoarded by wealthy countries in the Global North. Click ...

Analysis from Cobus van Staden

Ghana Commissions First Roads Built Under Controversial Bauxite Deal

Ghana’s Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia this week commissioned the first road infrastructure built under a controversial $2 billion resource-for-infrastructure deal with the Chinese conglomerate Sinohydro. 

Bawumia was eager to claim the inauguration of 441 km of roads in the Cape Coast region as a win for his government, which has faced major economic headwinds over the last few months. It also papered over the fact that the project faced criticism for delayed implementation following the signing ...

Chinese Foreign Ministry Issues a Rare, Albeit Bland, Statement on the Conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray Region

The Chinese government has been characteristically mute on the Tigray conflict in Ethiopia since fighting broke out last November. This is by no means surprising, given that the Chinese foreign ministry does its level best to avoid commenting on conflicts in other countries which it regards as the ...

China Benefits from the West’s Shortsighted Vaccine Policy

Focusing on China-Africa issues on a daily basis now means a daily dose of vaccine news (in lieu of an actual vaccine dose.) This morning I gamely waded into a great new Slate explainer on the vaccine crisis, only to promptly lose my mind. The article outlined ...