The African Continental Free Trade Area is the largest in the world. The World Bank sees it as a means of lifting 30 million people out of extreme poverty. But will it?
There is a need to be alive to tensions between short- and long-term objectives, as well as the assumptions we hold around what we consider to be “better” and how to achieve it.
South Africa’s National Treasury now proposes to reduce salaries. On the face of it this seems sensible. But the fundamental issue is the structure of the public service.
Zimbabwe wants to issue a sovereign bond to raise $3.5 billion it has agreed to pay as compensation to white farmers, but the economic and political conditions aren’t conducive to such an issuance.
African countries should tread carefully over the debt relief offered by multilateral institutions and other lenders. It could prove very costly in the medium to long term.
A blanket solution to Africa’s debt burden risks costing African countries dearly in terms of access to international capital markets and the relatively lower cost of borrowing.
Professor of International Business Strategy & Emerging Markets at the University of Sussex Business School, and the Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town