Seven months into the worsening African debt crisis and still there’s no prospect for any meaningful relief in sight. The situation grows even direr by the day as more countries struggle to pay for rising healthcare costs brought on by the COVID019 outbreak while at the same continue to service their loans.
All of the continent’s major creditors including China, G20 countries, bondholders, the Paris Club and multilateral lenders like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund all have programs intended to help resolve the situation but none, so far, have done very much to ease the crisis.
Alonso Soto is covering the African debt story for Bloomberg News where he’s an Abuja-based correspondent. Alonso joins Eric & Cobus to provide an update on the debt relief situation and insights from his conversations with dozens of sources on what to expect through the end of the year.
Show Notes:
- Bloomberg Businessweek: Africa Starts to Have Second Thoughts About That Chinese Money by Alonso Soto
- Bloomberg: Africa Seen Getting More Debt Relief From China Than Bondholders by Alonso Soto
- Bloomberg: The Ticking Debt Bomb in Africa Threatens a Global Explosion by Alonso Soto
About Alonso Soto:
Alonso Soto is a Nigeria-based correspondent for the Bloomberg News service where he covers economics, politics, and security in West Africa. Prior to joining Bloomberg, Alonso spent almost 12 years reporting on Latin America for Reuters in Brazil, Ecuador and Chile among other countries. He received his undergraduate degree in journalism from the prestigious University of Missouri school of journalism and later graduated with a master’s degree in public policy from Princeton University.
