Social spending floors sit in IMF programmes as indicative targets, so they carry no consequence when they break. Across Africa the adjustment lands on unpaid care work.
Last week I wrote about the nurse in Manchester who wires her sister’s school fees to Harare every month. Look closer at what her money buys. School fees. A grandmother’s blood pressure tablets. Crèche fees so a cousin can keep her market stall. The wire
Every month, a nurse in Manchester wires her sister’s school fees to Harare. A driver in Houston sends rent money to his mother in Lagos. A teacher in Johannesburg pays a cousin’s hospital bill in Bulawayo. None of them call this development finance. They call
It has been some months since I last wrote here. One question pulled me back: as the world scrambles for Africa’s critical minerals, who carries the cost, and who captures the value? Africa is setting new terms Something is shifting across the continent. In February
When I entered the High-Level Dialogue on Rethinking Debt Sustainability and Exploring Africa’s Alternative Financing Models on 17 November 2025 in Johannesburg, I felt the pulse of a continent refusing to be defined by its liabilities. Convened by the African Union Commission, AFRODAD, UNDP, UNECA,
The Malignant Development Financing Cancer Africa is grappling with a malignant development financing cancer manifesting in bulging illicit financial flows and debt distress despite being replete with natural resource wealth. These challenges have been made more daunting by the effects of the scaffolded crises –
In the early 2000s, Zimbabwe went on to default on its external debt obligations as its political and economic crisis turned ugly with the Fast Track Land Reform Programme causing internal chaos, volatility and shocks to capital. Arrears and penalties began to accumulate and currently
The novel COVID-19 virus which had Wuhan, China as its epicentre in November 2019, quickly diffused, ravaging the world and its epicentre changed to Iran, Europe and USA in the first quarter of 2020 becoming an unprecedented pandemic of our times since the Great Depression
Zimbabweans woke up to the news that South Africa had rejected an emergency loan application by Zimbabwe to the tune of $1.2 billion. This loan is reported to have been meant to stabilise the economy and eradicate the fuel shortages that have bedevilled the country