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By Steve Aborisade
Increasingly, governments across Africa are making an impossible choice. They must decide whether the next available dollar goes to servicing foreign debts or to funding hospitals, schools, roads, food security, and creating jobs. Steadily, debt repayments come first. This is no longer an occasional fiscal emergency. It has become the normal condition of governance in many African countries.
For years, Africa’s debt challenge has been discussed largely in financial terms. Analysts focus on debt-to-GDP ratios, interest rates, fiscal deficits, and credit ratings. While these indicators matter, they often obscure the real issue. When governments spend more repaying creditors than investing in their own citizens, debt ceases to be a financial instrument and becomes a barrier to development.
That is precisely where Africa finds itself today. Globally, an estimated 3.4 billion people live in countries that spend more on debt servicing than on health or education. In Africa, about two-thirds of countries now face this reality. Such a widespread pattern cannot simply be explained by poor governance or reckless borrowing. It points to deeper structural flaws in the international financial system.
The most immediate cost of debt is what governments are unable to do. Every dollar devoted to servicing sovereign debt, bilateral loans, or commercial credit is a dollar unavailable for building clinics, improving schools, expanding electricity access, strengthening agriculture, or preparing communities for climate change. Economists describe this as the ‘crowding-out effect.’ Across much of Africa, it has become the defining feature of public finance.
In many African countries, over the past years, it has been shown that after defaulting on their external debts, countries spend years negotiating with creditors before meaningful restructuring could begin. Even after agreements with official lenders, negotiations with private creditors remained slow and difficult. Throughout that period, scarce public resources that could have supported economic recovery remained tied up in debt negotiations.
The burden is even heavier for countries already facing climate shocks. African nations contribute only a small share of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet many pay higher borrowing costs because they are considered more vulnerable to climate risks. The result is deeply ironic. Countries that need affordable finance to adapt to climate change often pay the highest price to access it, leaving them with even fewer resources to strengthen resilience.
Behind these numbers are ordinary people. A government that prioritises debt repayment over healthcare cannot adequately staff hospitals or ensure the availability of essential medicines. A government forced to reduce education spending cannot equip young people with the skills needed for the future. These are not secondary effects of the debt crisis. They are its greatest human cost, and they fall most heavily on women, children, and the poorest communities.
While domestic governance certainly matters, blaming African governments alone misses a much larger reality. Corruption, weak institutions, and poor fiscal management have contributed to debt problems in some countries, but they do not fully explain why debt distress has become so widespread across Africa. The international financial system itself deserves closer scrutiny.
Many African economies inherited structural disadvantages from the colonial era. Colonial administrations organised economies primarily to extract raw materials rather than build diversified industries. Newly independent states were left with narrow commodity-based economies that remained vulnerable to price shocks and dependent on external borrowing for development.
Attempts to establish international legal principles that would prevent newly independent countries from inheriting unjust colonial debts ultimately failed, leaving many countries to carry financial burdens created under the colonial rule.
These historical inequalities continue to shape today’s debt architecture. The international financial institutions remain central to sovereign debt management, yet African countries collectively hold only a small share of voting power despite accounting for many of the countries currently experiencing debt distress. This imbalance means that those most affected by debt crises have relatively little influence over the rules governing how such crises are resolved.
The debt restructuring process itself also favours creditors. Negotiations are frequently lengthy, fragmented, and unpredictable. Official lenders, private bondholders, multilateral institutions, and commercial banks often pursue different interests, prolonging negotiations while debtor countries continue to experience economic hardship. During these delays, investment stalls, confidence declines, and governments struggle to finance essential public services.
Yet faster restructuring alone is not enough. An unfair system that operates more efficiently remains unfair. Genuine reform requires addressing the structural weaknesses that repeatedly push developing countries into prolonged debt crises.
First, debtor nations need stronger collective representation in global financial negotiations. Borrowing countries often negotiate individually against far better-resourced creditors. A coordinated Borrowers’ Forum could strengthen their negotiating position and encourage more balanced outcomes.
Second, debt service should automatically pause during major public health emergencies or climate disasters. Countries responding to floods, droughts, pandemics, or similar crises should not be forced to choose between saving lives and meeting debt obligations. Temporary payment suspensions would allow governments to focus resources where they are needed most before resuming repayment under agreed terms.
Third, governance within international financial institutions should better reflect today’s global realities. Developing countries, particularly those bearing the greatest debt burdens, deserve a stronger voice in decisions that shape international lending and restructuring practices.
Finally, both borrowers and lenders must be held to higher standards. Governments must strengthen transparency, improve debt management, broaden domestic revenue collection, and ensure that borrowed funds finance productive investments rather than recurrent expenditure or waste. At the same time, creditors should also be accountable for responsible lending. Sustainable debt requires responsibility on both sides of every loan agreement.
Africa’s future does not depend on avoiding borrowing altogether. External finance remains essential for building roads, hospitals, schools, power infrastructure, and industries capable of supporting long-term economic transformation. The challenge is not borrowing itself but ensuring that debt becomes a tool for development rather than an obstacle to it.
The continent’s recurring debt crises reveal a deeper truth. Africa is not simply struggling with excessive debt. It is operating within a global financial architecture that too often places the interests of creditors ahead of the development needs of borrowing countries. Until that imbalance is addressed, debt relief will remain temporary, crises will continue to recur, and governments will keep making impossible choices between paying creditors and investing in their own people.
Debt should finance opportunity, not postpone it. If Africa is to achieve lasting prosperity, the international debt system must evolve from one that manages recurring crises to one that genuinely supports sustainable development. Only then will borrowing become what it was always intended to be: a pathway to growth rather than a barrier to it.
Aborisade is the Senior Advocacy and Marketing Manager, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF-Nigeria). This piece is written as part of the Freedom from Debt campaign (June 2026 – January 2027) championed by the AHF Global Public Health Institute.
