The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) – an African Union-backed initiative – will launch a continent-wide credit ratings agency in October, a senior adviser \u200bat the AU said on Wednesday, as it seeks \u200cto tackle high borrowing costs.<\/p>\n
Paul Sikazwe, technical adviser on debt to the African Union Commission, said the ratings agency created for Africa will be launched in \u200bMauritius on October 5.<\/p>\n
“This is a sign of progress in \u200bour ambition to provide momentum for the reform of \u2060the international financial architecture,” said Sikazwe, speaking during a conference on \u200bdebt and development in the Kenyan capital hosted by campaign group AfroDad.<\/p>\n
The \u200bAPRM has been working for years on the launch of an agency that assesses the creditworthiness of African sovereigns as governments seek an alternative to ratings \u200bfrom the dominant global ratings firms such as Fitch, Moody’s and \u200bS&P Global.<\/p>\n
African leaders have long said the “big three” western ratings agencies do not \u200cfairly \u2060assess the risk of lending to African countries. They have also accused them of being quick to downgrade African economies during crises like conflicts and pandemics.<\/p>\n
The agencies have rejected this, saying their ratings follow \u200bthe same formula \u200bacross the world.<\/p>\n
Debt \u2060issues in Africa have risen to the fore in recent years after heavy borrowing, economic mismanagement and \u200bexternal shocks pushed countries including Zambia, Ghana and Ethiopia \u200binto \u2060sovereign defaults in recent years.<\/p>\n
The AU is also forging ahead with a push to take common action on debt by its 54-member states, Sikazwe \u2060said, \u200bincluding the inauguration of an African Monetary \u200bInstitute in Abuja in late October, which is designed to serve as a precursor \u200bto a regional central bank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) – an African Union-backed initiative – will launch a continent-wide credit ratings agency in October, a senior adviser \u200bat the AU said on Wednesday, as it seeks \u200cto tackle high borrowing costs. Paul Sikazwe, technical adviser on debt to the African Union Commission, said the ratings agency created for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21887,"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":[1116,32,2362],"tags":[5424],"class_list":["post-21886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-african-union","category-economy","category-featured","tag-african-peer-review-mechanism-aprm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21886","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=21886"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21888,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21886\/revisions\/21888"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}