The International Development Economics Associates (IDEAs International) on Wednesday, March 27, 2024, began a three-day conference on African Debt Crisis and International Financial Architecture in Accra.
This is expected to accommodate prominent dignitaries within the African space to share ideas on needed reforms to recover lost economic decades in the African continent.
Speaking at the event, Professor Adebayo Olukoshi, a Professor from the Nordic African Institute stated it is about time the narrative is changed with strong fiscal discipline and retrieving the African dignity.
He further highlighted some keynotes that has plunged the African continent into its current state.
“The time has come, first of all to stop going round behaving as if we are people with no shame. We cannot be going round with a begging bowl from one generation to another looking for help when we are the most endowed continent in the world. Moreover, if we wake up to the realization and wake up to say that enough is enough. We cannot continue with this cycle; then you can begin to take the necessary measures to break the structures of your dependence,” he said.
He further asserted that, “The current African debt crisis affecting many African countries has a lot of similarities with the debt crisis of the 1980s, but also with some important differences in the 1970s leading to the 80s our external debts were mostly with official creditors. Where a lot of them organised into so-called Paris Club of Creditors. To the extent to which there was any other lending, that took place outside the bilateral creditors it came from the multilateral institutions; mainly the IMF and the World Bank.”
By: Kwamena Ansah | Metrotvonline.com | Ghana
