African Union

Invitation: Climate Finance and Sovereign Debt - Afronomicslaw Event on the Sidelines of the Spring Meetings of the IMF and World Bank Group

March 23, 2024

Afronomicslaw.org invites you to a roundtable discussion on Climate Finance and Sovereign Debt organized on the Sidelines of the Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group

Date: 18th April, 2024

Time: 3:30pm - 6.00pm

Venue: Yours Truly DC Hotel, 1143 New Hampshire Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20037, USA.

The COVID-19 Pandemic and Access to Medicines in Africa: A Critical Review of the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation (APTF)

The African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation (APTF) was established in 2023 to improve Africa’s local pharmaceutical capacity and access to technologies needed to discover and manufacture medicines. This new initiative was prompted by the vaccine inequities experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this article, I highlight four critical concerns regarding the structural and operational framework of the APTF, which have the potential to undermine the Foundation's objectives and legitimacy: the misallocation of public resources due to the existence of a similar agency established by the African Union (AU), the Foundation's endorsement of BioNTech's opaque "black box" system, which conflicts with its objectives, the continental approach that overlooks the diversity of the African continent, and the lack of a clear public accountability structure in its governance framework. Consequently, I offer preliminary suggestions on how these concerns might be addressed.

Book Review: Sixty Years after Independence, Africa And International Law: Views from a Generation

This long-awaited book provides a fresh view of how international law is forged, implemented and practiced in Africa, offering a global vision of the position that the African continent presently occupies in the international legal order. In addition to some contributions by European authors, the book mostly gathers young African scholars (including the editor, one of the most promising African international lawyers of our times) who consider different aspects of international law.

Afronomicslaw and The South Centre Collaborative Webinar: Africa and the Geopolitics of WTO Reforms

Afronomicslaw and The South Centre are delighted to collaborate on this webinar where our Panelists will reflect on some of the most topical issues under the broad umbrella of geopolitics of reforms, Africa and the WTO. Please join us as we reflect on the MC13, reform of the WTO DSM and implications for Africa, Africa in an era of renewed industrial policy, sustainable trade in Africa among others.

What does success look like for MC13?

Having attended two-thirds of the WTO’s ministerial conferences, I have been reflecting on why they have failed. In most cases it comes down to an abuse of process and bullying by more powerful Members, sometimes with collusion from the chair and the secretariat, leaving developing countries with two choices: capitulation or denial of consensus.

One Hundred and Second Sovereign Debt News Update: Governance Reforms Risk Posing a Challenge for Zimbabwe’s Arrears Clearance and Debt Resolution Process

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.

IMF Quota Reforms: Is the appointment of a Third Executive Director for Sub-Saharan Africa a game changer?

The AfSDJN reiterates that at a time when the legitimacy and credibility of the IMF in its relations with African countries is increasingly being called into question, the ongoing quota reform presents an opportunity to right the past wrongs and commit to genuine inclusion and meaningful participation of Africans in the institution. Short of this, African countries will continue to play catch up in a rigged game.

NEW OPEN ACCESS BOOK: Sixty years after independence, Africa and international law: Views from a generation / Soixante ans apres les independances, l’Afrique et le droit international: Regards d’une generation, Apollin Koagne Zouapet (Ed), PULP 2023

This book emerged from the observation that in international law scholarship, few studies have been done on Africa as both object and subject of international law despite the involvement of African states and Africans in the international arena and their active participation in many debates. To fill this gap by examining, sixty years after the independence of African states, the place of Africa in international law and the way international law looks at Africa is the challenge that the contributors to this book, all internationalists of the 1980-1990 generation, have taken up. The book highlights the specificity of a particular African law and examines the African experience in this fi eld from an international law perspective.

New Book: Transforming Climate Finance in an Era of Sovereign Debt Distress, James T. Gathii, Adebayo Majekolagbe, and Nona Tamale, Eds. (Free Access)

This book brings together a team of talented young researchers convened by the African Sovereign Debt Justice Network (AfSDJN). Over a two year period they researched and carefully considered how best to transform climate finance in an era of sovereign debt distress. One of the major insights of the book is that unless climate finance is fundamentally transformed, its growing number of instruments and initiatives will entrench the sovereign debt crisis while failing to resolve the ecological crisis that many countries are already experiencing.