Are African countries’ fiscal efforts strong enough to restore debt sustainability?

Date: Tuesday 29 August 2023

With various debt restructuring exercises underway across the African continent, we investigate whether the fiscal efforts made by the most prominent debtor nations are sufficient to strengthen public balance sheets. Adverse valuation effects transmit not only via a strong greenback, but also from external pressure to align local exchange units closer to market-clearance levels. On the other hand, persistently high inflation erodes the value of local-currency debt to keep an artificial cap on public debt-to-GDP metrics. Against the backdrop of these valuation effects, are African countries making the front-loaded fiscal consolidation efforts that are needed to ward off debt crises?

Pieter Scribante

Political Economist, Oxford Economics Africa

+27 (0) 21 863 6200

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Pieter Scribante

Political Economist, Oxford Economics Africa

Paarl, South Africa

Pieter is a political economist at Oxford Economics Africa, first joining the firm in 2019. He holds an MSc in Political Science and Political Economy from the London School of Economics (LSE) and is the principal analyst for Nigeria and Mauritius. Pieter specialises in macroeconomics and political-economic risk analysis.

Irmgard Erasmus

Senior Financial Economist, OE Africa

+27 (0) 83 282 0497

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Irmgard Erasmus

Senior Financial Economist, OE Africa

Cape Town, South Africa

Irmgard is the senior financial economist for Africa, and responsible for Oxford Economics Africa’s fixed income and FX coverage for the continent. She joined OEA as a macroeconomist and fixed income analyst from JP Morgan, and has more than a decade’s experience in Africa’s financial markets space.