Financial Governance

Sovereign Debt News Update No. 179: Nigeria Ignores Total Return Swap Warnings from IMF, Fitch and Moody’s; Proceeds to Draw $2B from $5B Swap with First Abu Dhabi Bank

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.

Sovereign Debt News Update No. 178: Clearing Old Debt, Accumulating New Pressures: Mozambique’s Worsening Debt Crisis

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.

Sovereign Debt News Update No. 177: Malawi's Deepening Debt Distress: IMF Negotiations, Financing Constraints and the Search for Economic Recovery

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.

Sovereign Debt News Update No. 176: From Hidden Debt to Political Crisis: Senegal, the IMF, and the Crisis of Economic Sovereignty

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.

Sovereign Debt News Update No. 175: Institutional Gaps and Default Risks: Examining Malawi’s Fragile Debt Management Architecture

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.

Sovereign Debt News Update No. 174: Gabon’s Turn to Regional and International Markets Deepens Debt Sustainability Concerns

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.

Book Review Symposium IX: Corporate Governance in Africa, (Routledge 2025) - Corporate Governance Challenges in Africa’s Banks: Towards a Contextual and Institutional Framework

In Corporate Governance in Africa, Victor Ediagbonya embarks on a critical examination of the corporate governance landscape within the African banking sector, offering a well-reasoned and empirically grounded challenge to the wholesale transplantation of the Anglo-Saxon model into sub-Saharan Africa. Drawing from institutional and stakeholder theories, Ediagbonya proposes a ‘Functional Stakeholder Model’ (FSM) as a context-sensitive alternative governance framework. This book stands as a significant contribution to both comparative corporate governance and the broader discourse on institutional reform in developing economies.

Book Review Symposium VIII: Corporate Governance in Africa, (Routledge 2025) - Beyond Formalism: A Contextualised Theoretical Framework for Corporate Governance in African Banks

Corporate Governance in Africa, authored by Victor Ediagbonya, Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Brighton, addresses a pressing but underexplored problem in African banking. The book examines the failure of corporate governance frameworks to protect the interests of stakeholders such as employees and customers when banks collapse. It argues that Nigeria and South Africa have adopted the Anglo-Saxon corporate governance model from the United Kingdom, a model designed around shareholder primacy and premised on the existence of strong legal institutions and active financial markets.

Book Review Symposium VII: Corporate Governance in Africa, (Routledge 2025) - Rethinking Corporate Governance in African Banking: A Functional Stakeholder Approach in Context-Constrained Environments

Victor Ediagbonya’s Corporate Governance in Africa advances a compelling, context-sensitive critique of the transplantation of the Anglo-Saxon, shareholder-centric corporate governance model into African banking systems, particularly Nigeria and South Africa, and proposes a tailored alternative: the Functional Stakeholder Model (‘FSM’). The book’s thesis is straightforward yet significant: corporate governance “best practice” from developed economies performs unevenly when exported to jurisdictions with different institutional realities; banking sectors in countries marked by institutional voids, weak legal enforcement, insider dominated ownership, underdeveloped capital markets, and systemic corruption, require frameworks that are explicitly designed to recognise and protect a broader set of stakeholders beyond shareholders.

Book Review Symposium VI: Corporate Governance in Africa, (Routledge 2025) - Remodelling Corporate Governance in Africa’s Banking Sector – A Fresh Perspective

The Anglo-Saxon corporate governance model practised by most African countries traditionally seeks to protect only the shareholders as the residual owners of an enterprise. (Ngwu, Osuji and Stephen, 2017). The engagement and protection of the interests of various other stakeholders have become an important corporate governance discourse in academia as well as in practice. Given the complexity of the African business environment, the importance of effective stakeholder management cannot be overemphasised and has been a topical issue in recent times. Dr Victor Ediagbonya’s book “Corporate Governance in Africa” presents a transformative exposition of stakeholder management issues in Africa’s banking sector with key references to Nigeria and South Africa.