Economic Development in Africa Report 2016 : Debt Dynamics and Development Finance in Africa
- New York and Geneva United Nations 2016
- 166p.
The report examines some of the key policy issues that underlie Africa’s domestic and external debt, and provides policy guidance on the delicate balance required between financing development alternatives and overall debt sustainability. The report reveals that Africa lost an estimated amount of 854 billion dollars in illicit financial flows from 1970 to 2008, an amount nearly equivalent to all official development assistance received by the continent during that time and only one third would have been sufficient to cover its external debt.It reveals that Africa may have a problem with unsustainable debt on its hands if it doesn’t manage to find other ways to finance development and cut off illicit financial flows. The report analyses Africa’s international debt exposure and how the domestic debt is increasingly playing a role in some African countries as a development finance option, and also examines complementary financing options and how they relate to debt. The report reveals that at least $600 billion would be needed annually to realize the Sustainable Development Goals in Africa, or a third of the continent’s gross national income – and international aid and external debt aren’t going to be enough to cover that. It called on African leaders to leverage domestic and external debt without compromising debt sustainability, saying a better balance must be reached between the benefits of new concessional and non-concessional borrowing from .
