Sovereign Debt

The Repository contains cases, documents, bibliographies and materials on International Economic Law relating to Africa and the Global South with a view to making these materials easily and freely accessible. At the moment, the repository contains cases from the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, (COMESA), Court of Justice cases as well as an extensive summary of Africa's regional and sub-regional international economic regimes. Afronomicslaw.org invites our readers to contribute towards building this repository by proposing and submitting bibliographies particularly of materials of international economic law and international law that concern and relate to Africa and the Global South. The justifications for this repository include making these materials easily accessible and available especially in resource constrained environments. In addition, the repository is consistent with a major Afronomicslaw.org goals of: (i) centering and amplifying the scholarship that is excluded in the canon of international law in the most widely read publications; and (ii), producing content to overcome barriers to access such as cost of printed materials, paywalls and stringent intellectual property rights protections.

Join a Transformative Training at the Intersection of Climate Justice, Economic Sovereignty, and Global Governance. Afronomicslaw invites applications for an in-person Masterclass on climate finance and economic justice training taking place in Accra, Ghana. This high level, interdisciplinary program will bring changemakers from across Africa together to unpack the urgent challenges of climate finance, debt, and economic justice facing the continent.

This report sheds new light on a critically overlooked dimension of Africa’s sovereign debt landscape—the transaction costs incurred through the use of intermediaries in debt restructuring processes. This report breaks new ground by exploring the charges, expenses, and costs arising from third-party intermediaries' participation and the broader implications these costs pose for debt sustainability across the continent.

The African Sovereign Debt Justice Network, (AfSDJN), is a coalition of citizens, scholars, civil society actors and church groups committed to exposing the adverse impact of unsustainable levels of African sovereign debt on the lives of ordinary citizens. Convened by Afronomicslaw.org with the support of Open Society for Southern Africa, (OSISA), the AfSDJN's activities are tailored around addressing the threats that sovereign debt poses for economic development, social cohesion and human rights in Africa. It advocates for debt cancellation, rescheduling and restructuring as well as increasing the accountability and responsibility of lenders and African governments about how sovereign debt is procured, spent and repaid. Focusing in particular on Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Nigeria and Senegal, the AfSDJN will also amplify African voices and decolonize narratives on African sovereign debt . Its activities include producing research outputs to enhance the network’s advocacy interventions. It also seeks to create awareness on and elevate the priority given to sovereign debt and other economic justice issues on the African continent and beyond throughout 2021.

The African Sovereign Debt Justice Network, (AfSDJN), is a coalition of citizens, scholars, civil society actors and church groups committed to exposing the adverse impact of unsustainable levels of African sovereign debt on the lives of ordinary citizens. Convened by Afronomicslaw.org with the support of Open Society for Southern Africa, (OSISA), the AfSDJN's activities are tailored around addressing the threats that sovereign debt poses for economic development, social cohesion and human rights in Africa. It advocates for debt cancellation, rescheduling and restructuring as well as increasing the accountability and responsibility of lenders and African governments about how sovereign debt is procured, spent and repaid. Focusing in particular on Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Nigeria and Senegal, the AfSDJN will also amplify African voices and decolonize narratives on African sovereign debt . Its activities include producing research outputs to enhance the network’s advocacy interventions. It also seeks to create awareness on and elevate the priority given to sovereign debt and other economic justice issues on the African continent and beyond throughout 2021.

Creditors’ motivations appear to be mixed. While reputational benefits and international commitments are primary drivers, more pragmatic interests, such asthe opportunity to redeem discounted loans above market rates, also play a role. Asignificant finding is that most respondents feel their countries lack agency in DNS operations. The survey also indicates skepticism about DNS’s effectiveness inreducing sovereign debt, although respondents acknowledge its potential foraddressing environmental challenges. Transparency emerges as a major concern. Respondents consistently describe DNS transactions as opaque or minimally transparent, with local communities rarely, if ever, involved in the process. While DNS is not widely endorsed as either a preferred debt restructuring tool or climate finance mechanism, respondents do recognize its limited but meaningful role, particularly in environmental initiatives.

Join a Transformative Training at the Intersection of Climate Justice, Economic Sovereignty, and Global Governance. Afronomicslaw invites applications for an in-person Masterclass on climate finance and economic justice training taking place in Accra, Ghana.

Sovereign debt is generated by a global financial and debt architecture that subordinates Global South countries for profit. The recurrent debt crisis that Global South countries experience from time to time is not an aberration but a systemic feature of the global financial and debt architecture. Similarly, the ad hoc, temporary, and non-binding ‘soft’ law approaches designed to address the chronic indebtedness of Global South countries are not incidental but are integral features of a global financial and debt architecture dominated by the interests of private capital.

Join us for the launch of Afronomics Law's latest quarterly report, "Sovereign Debt as Subordination to Global Finance", by Prof. James Gathii and Dr. Harrison Mbori.

The national policy outlined in the Economic Transformation Act No. 45 of 2024 (the Act or the ET Act ) identifies promoting foreign investment as a key driver in Sri Lanka’s economic transformation. It further underscores the need to attract export-oriented foreign direct investment (FDI) to support the ‘growth of non-debt creating inflows to the economy’. The policy sets forth two specific investment goals. The first is to increase the country’s net FDI inflow to at least five per cent of Gross Domestic Production by the year 2030. The second is to ensure that at least forty per cent of the country’s net FDI is in exports of goods or services by the same year. Achieving these goals requires Sri Lanka to create a conducive business environment. The preamble to the ET Act also emphasizes the need for a law that fosters an investment-friendly environment within the country. It further affirms Sri Lanka’s commitment to establish ‘a transparent, inclusive, and rules-based system that promotes fair and equitable treatment’ for both domestic and foreign investors. To that effect, the ET Act provides for a comprehensive set of investment guarantees. Yet, they mainly focus on protecting the interests of foreign investors and placing them in an advantaged position relative to domestic investors. The idea behind prioritizing investor protection is to ostensibly promote FDI which has been identified as a key driver of Sri Lanka’s economic growth in the post-economic crisis era. Thus, the ET Act manifests the structural biases inherent in international law on foreign investment while perpetuating the long-standing power disparity between foreign and domestic investors by embedding it within Sri Lanka’s domestic legal system.