Sub-Saharan Africa: How to Overcome the Debt Barrier

This debt repayment wall, which keeps nearly half of sub-Saharan nations in a situation of proven or high-risk over-indebtedness, is proof of the failure of the extra-African financing model. The geometric increase in net financial charges systematically neutralizes the wealth created on the continent. The fact that an excessive share of tax revenues is absorbed by the service of external debt consecrates a form of abdication in the face of global markets. A state apparatus cannot be content to act as a simple tax collector intended to reassure rating agencies, while local populations remain deprived of the most basic infrastructure.

The need for genuine economic security requires breaking definitively with dependence on external speculative capital. Waiting for a concession or restructuring from multilateral donors is an illusion that perpetuates general vulnerability. The salvation of economies lies exclusively in the radical reorientation of financing policies. It is necessary to mobilize local savings, densify regional capital markets, and condition any new commitment to industrial projects that directly generate added value. Debt is only tolerable if it finances production, never when it serves to repay past mistakes.

The time has come to substitute the logic of permanent refinancing with that of historical responsibility towards future generations. Sub-Saharan Africa can no longer link its social stability and civil peace to the demands of creditors. By making the preservation of human capital through education and health an absolute and non-negotiable priority, governments will lay the foundations for autonomous growth. It is through this internal financial discipline and refusal of programmed asphyxiation that states will manage to break the chains of dependence and finally safeguard the right to prosperity.

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Good reading!

EWC, DP