The International Politics Around Africa’s Debt

Africa’s growing public debt had sparked a renewed global debate about debt sustainability on the continent well before the COVID-19 pandemic. Africa’s allegedly unsustainable indebtedness is largely owing to the emergence of China as a major financier of African infrastructure, resulting in a narrative that China is using debt to gain geopolitical leverage by trapping poor countries into unsustainable loans. Although most Chinese loans have targeted large financing gaps in the development of Africa’s transportation and energy infrastructure, managing this new role as Africa’s creditor poses unprecedented challenges for Beijing. This has become even more evident during the COVID-19 outbreak. What is the nature of African countries’ indebtedness? Is China luring the continent toward the so-called “debt trap”? Would it be possible to restructure Africa’s debt? And how? And what prospects for Africa’s development trajectories?