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It’s Time We Have an Honest Discussion About African Debt Relief

by Eric Olander
Angela Weiss / AFP

There’s a huge disconnect between the debt relief discussion currently taking place on many webinars hosted by academics and analysts, and the reality of what’s actually happening.

We’re now five months into this crisis and one thing is clear: bondholders, pension funds, asset management firms, and the rest of Africa’s private creditors are not at all aligned with the priorities set out by development experts. Day after day we see pie-in-the-sky recommendations calling for financial service companies to fall in line behind the G20 and the World Bank on suspending/freezing/halting debt repayments from the world’s poorest countries.

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