This summit in hybrid format (both in person and by videoconference) will welcome no fewer than thirty African and European heads of state and government, as well as representatives of G7 and G20 countries. Also present will be the President of the AU Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, and that of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Akinwumi Adesina.
The UN, the IMF, the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), the WTO (World Trade Organisation), the World Bank and several international public banks have also been invited. China will be represented by a senior official.
This high-level meeting follows the release of a platform by 18 African and European leaders, published on April 15, 2020, in favor of mobilizing the international community to face the consequences of the health and economic crisis caused in Africa by the pandemic.
President Emmanuel Macron “wishes that new and ambitious solutions will be found so that Africa can face this unprecedented shock and return to growth, like other continents that have been able to implement massive recovery plans,” the French presidency said when announcing the summit.
Among the avenues that will be explored are in particular the reduction, or even the cancellation, of the debt of the poorest African countries, as Emmanuel Macron had expressed the wish in April 2020, or even exceptional support from the IMF through special drawing rights.
Africa’s debt fell sharply in the 1990s following the IMF and World Bank’s initiative for heavily indebted poor countries (HIPC). Before starting to rise again: between 2006 and 2019, it tripled, from $100 billion to $309 billion. And the Covid-19 crisis has not helped matters.
According to the IMF, sub-Saharan African countries could face a financing gap of $290 billion by 2023.
As early as April 2020, a debt service moratorium was put in place by the Paris Club and the G20, which made it possible to defer the payment of $5.7 billion in interest.
Then, in October, the G20 agreed on a “common framework” to restructure the debt of certain countries, involving private creditors and China, by far the largest lender of African countries: Angola, Kenya and Ethiopia being its three largest debtors.
The summit should also broadly examine the issue of financing the African private sector, and address many future challenges, such as the financing needed for Africa’s development, or the role of technical assistance.
Although Africa has been relatively less affected than other continents in terms of health by Covid-19, it has not escaped the economic consequences of the pandemic, which risk suffocating the most fragile and most indebted countries.
International institutions are thus placing the region at the back of the global recovery following the 2020 recession, the first for this region in a quarter of a century.
In its forecasts published in mid-April, the IMF predicts an increase in African activity of only 3.4%, compared to 6% for the global economy.
Growth is expected to return in 2022, but at a lower rate than in more developed countries, with a risk of “divergence”, according to the Elysée.
Faced with this observation, the objective displayed by the Paris Summit could not be more ambitious, namely to put in place financial means capable of reviving the African economy damaged by the health crisis and finding a palliative to the continent’s re-indebtedness.
In short, to achieve a “new deal” for Africa and its economy as desired by Emmanuel Macron. A “new deal”, based in particular on “deeply innovative solutions”.
2024-09-15 14:36:48