French President Emmanuel Macron jogged with Kenyan marathon star Eliud Kipchoge, spoke with local university students and announced $27 billion in new investments at a Franco-African summit in Nairobi this week.<\/p>\n
But his pledges \u200bto support Africa’s debt\u2011strapped economies and push to\u00a0reform the international financial system by offering a \u200cfirst loss guarantee mechanism fell short of what is needed, such as debt relief and payment pauses, analysts said.<\/p>\n
“There are a vast range of new commitments France could have made that would have helped to shift the international financial architecture,” said Hannah Ryder \u200bof Africa-focused consultancy, Development Reimagined. “Those France picked, even if they were credible… will simply preserve the \u200barchitecture as it stands.”<\/p>\n
A first\u2011loss guarantee is a mechanism in which one party absorbs initial \u2060losses on an investment, aimed at making projects more attractive to private investors.<\/p>\n
The risk-guarantee mechanism is part of \u200ba broader push to mobilise private capital as rich governments shift spending from development financing to defence and other \u200bdomestic priorities.<\/p>\n
“We need to make the international development finance system work better, ensure it is better coordinated, less complex for recipient countries,” a French finance ministry official said in Paris on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
“States and international financial institutions can guarantee loans taken out by poorer \u200bor developing countries to finance projects.”<\/p>\n
CALLS FOR DEBT RELIEF<\/strong><\/p>\n African leaders like Kenya’s William Ruto, who co-chaired the summit \u200bwith Macron, have pushed for a review of credit rating approaches to lower borrowing costs, arguing Africa’s risk is overstated. Major \u200ccredit \u2060ratings agencies have rejected the criticism.<\/p>\n Other African proposals include\u00a0debt relief\u00a0for poorer nations, while a panel of African experts convened by South Africa last year urged rich nations and international financial institutions to create a debt refinancing mechanism.<\/p>\n Macron, who holds the G7 presidency, has invited Ruto to its summit next month where the risk-guarantee mechanisms will be \u200bdiscussed.<\/p>\n Campaigners say that will \u200bnot be enough.<\/p>\n “France must \u2060use its significant political influence on international sovereign debt issues to call for debt cancellations for Global South countries that request it,” six civil society groups, including African \u200bForum and Network on Debt and Development (Afrodad) and Oxfam France, said in a joint \u200bstatement.<\/p>\n Paris pitched the \u2060summit – the first held in a non-Francophone country – as a sign of renewed engagement with Africa after tension with some former colonies in West Africa.<\/p>\n More than 30 African leaders attended, alongside African and French business executives.<\/p>\n “While France is attempting to \u2060market itself \u200bas a more equal and respectful partner, the summit also reflected \u200ba broader effort by a former colonial power to remain economically and politically relevant on the continent,” said Jervin Naidoo, political analyst at \u200bOxford Economics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" French President Emmanuel Macron jogged with Kenyan marathon star Eliud Kipchoge, spoke with local university students and announced $27 billion in new investments at a Franco-African summit in Nairobi this week. But his pledges \u200bto support Africa’s debt\u2011strapped economies and push to\u00a0reform the international financial system by offering a \u200cfirst loss guarantee mechanism fell short […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20836,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":5,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,32,2362],"tags":[164,5147,1395,490],"class_list":["post-20880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-africa","category-economy","category-featured","tag-emmanuel-macron","tag-franco-african-summit","tag-nairobi","tag-william-ruto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20880"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20881,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20880\/revisions\/20881"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}