{"id":8202,"date":"2020-02-20T08:37:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-20T05:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=8202"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:52","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:52","slug":"african-countries-arent-borrowing-too-much-theyre-paying-too-much-for-debt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2020\/02\/20\/african-countries-arent-borrowing-too-much-theyre-paying-too-much-for-debt\/","title":{"rendered":"African Countries Aren\u2019t Borrowing Too much: They\u2019re Paying Too Much For Debt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.brookings.edu\/blog\/africa-in-focus\/2019\/04\/10\/is-a-debt-crisis-looming-in-africa\/\">renewed concern<\/a>&nbsp;about the sustainability of rising debt levels in many African countries. Much of this debt is being incurred through foreign currency denominated&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/documents.worldbank.org\/curated\/en\/491301554821864140\/pdf\/Issuing-International-Bonds-A-Guidance-Note.pdf#page=8\">Eurobonds<\/a>&nbsp;issued on international financial markets. The total&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.africanbondmarkets.org\/en\/news-events\/africa-financial-markets-news\/article\/african-eurobonds-an-evolving-and-now-100-billion-asset-class-158468\/\">value of Eurobonds<\/a>&nbsp;issued between 2018 and 2019 was more than the value of all bonds sold between 2003 to 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">African governments are issuing and listing their Eurobonds on established international debt markets \u2013 usually&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/cytonnasset.com\/topicals\/eurobonds-in-sub-saharan-africa\">London<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.csd.com.gh\/market-info\/market-news\/493-ghana-lists-10-year-eurobond-on-stock-exchange.html\">Irish Stock Exchanges<\/a>. African governments would venture offshore a lot less if domestic bond markets were active and liquid. But besides South Africa, African bond markets are largely&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.euromoney.com\/article\/b1b6497yd3npt9\/africa-comes-under-renewed-pressure-to-promote-its-local-bond-markets\">underdeveloped<\/a>&nbsp;with&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.afdb.org\/fileadmin\/uploads\/afdb\/Documents\/Publications\/AfDB-Guidebook-EN-web.pdf\">inactive and illiquid<\/a>&nbsp;secondary markets. This makes it difficult to attract international investor participation locally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The International Monetary Fund (IMF)&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneyweb.co.za\/news-fast-news\/african-countries-borrowing-like-its-the-1990s-worries-the-imf\/\">believes<\/a>&nbsp;that African countries are on a Eurobond issuing spree and half of them are near or at distressed levels. It argues that&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2019-11-19\/imf-s-georgieva-voices-concern-about-rising-african-debt-levels\">African governments<\/a>&nbsp;are piling on debt without evaluating the exchange rate risks and the real costs of repaying the debts. <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/african-countries-arent-borrowing-too-much-theyre-paying-too-much-for-debt-131053\">Read more&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is&nbsp;renewed concern&nbsp;about the sustainability of rising debt levels in many African countries. Much of this debt is being incurred through foreign currency denominated&nbsp;Eurobonds&nbsp;issued on international financial markets. The total&nbsp;value&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8203,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}