African central bank governors are calling for a major overhaul of the global debt system, warning that current frameworks are failing to address the continent’s mounting economic pressures.
Speaking at the African Consultative Group meeting hosted by the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C., the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Johnson Asiama, urged urgent reforms to better support vulnerable economies.
He emphasised the need for a more effective and responsive debt architecture, including a fit-for-purpose Low Income Country Debt Sustainability Framework and faster, more tailored implementation of the IMF’s Three Pillar Approach for countries already in or at risk of debt distress.
The African Consultative Group, which convenes finance ministers, central bank governors, and senior IMF officials during the Fund’s Spring and Annual Meetings, serves as a platform for coordinating Africa’s position on global economic issues.
Dr Asiama highlighted that African economies are grappling with a combination of tight global financial conditions, rising debt vulnerabilities, and recurring climate shocks. He added that these challenges have been worsened by spillover effects from conflicts in the Middle East, contributing to higher inflation and deteriorating external balances.
He stressed the importance of ensuring that IMF emergency financing mechanisms remain adequately resourced, responsive, and easily accessible for countries facing urgent balance-of-payments pressures.
Beyond debt restructuring, Dr Asiama called on the IMF to deploy more of its financial capacity to help countries manage overlapping crises while investing in long-term resilience. This includes increasing concessional financing, scaling up the reallocation of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), and reforming support facilities to make them faster and more accessible.
He also underscored the need for stronger efforts to help African countries regain access to international capital markets, alongside building institutional capacity in key areas such as revenue mobilisation, debt management, and financial sector oversight.
“The Fund should play a more explicit role in rebuilding market confidence through enhanced policy signaling, collaboration with partners on credit enhancement instruments, and program designs that actively crowd in private capital at sustainable costs,” he said.
The calls reflect growing concern among African policymakers that global financial systems are not evolving quickly enough to meet the scale and complexity of the continent’s economic challenges.
