Headline, September 18 2024/ AFRICA : ''' DEBT TENTACLES DEAN '''

AFRICA : ''' DEBT

TENTACLES DEAN '''

! FIRST AND FOREMOST ! - THE WORLD STUDENTS SOCIETY - is the exclusive and eternal ownership of every student of Africa, just as it is the exclusive and eternal ownership of every student in the world.

TENTACLES OF A DEBT CRISIS : CRUSHING obligations bedevil life in Africa - with catastrophic implications for the entire world.

AFTER a new tax increase incited weeks of deadly riots in Kenya early this summer, President William Ruto announced that it was reversing course. He abandoned the finance law he had proposed, and then he shook up his cabinet.

On Aug. 18, the government reversed itself again. The newly appointed finance minister announced that some of those tax increases would be reintroduced.

The Ruto administration is desperately trying to raise revenue to pay off billions of dollars in public debt and avoid defaulting on its loans, even as critical public assistance and services are being cut.

Governments throughout Africa are facing the same dilemma. The continent's foreign debt reached more than $1.1 trillion at the end of last year.

More than two dozen countries have excessive debt or are at high risk of it, according to the African Development Bank Group.

And roughly 900 million people live in countries that spend more on interest payments than on health care or education.

Outsize debt has been a familiar problem in the developing world, but the current crisis is considered the worst yet because of the amounts owed as well as the huge increase in the number and type of foreign creditors.

And in Africa, a continent pulsating with potential and peril, debt overshadows nearly everything that happens.

It leaves less money for investments that could create jobs for what is the youngest, fastest growing population on the planet ; less money to manage potential pandemics like Covid or mpox.

Less money to feed, house and educate people; less money to combat the devastating effects of climate change, which threatens to make swaths of land uninhabitable and force people to migrate.

IF NOTHING IS DONE to help countries manage the financial crunch, '' a wave of destabilizing debt defaults will end up severely undermining progress on the green transition, with -

Catastrophic implications for the entire world,'' warned a new report from the Finance for Development Lab at Paris School of Economics and Columbia University's Initiative for Policy Dialogue.

At the same time, economic stagnation in combination with government corruption and mismanagement has left many African countries more vulnerable to brutal wars, military coups and antigovernment riots.

IN NIGERIA, where foreign debt amounts to $40 billion, rising inflation and widespread hunger spurred a string of violent antigovernment protests in August. Forty percent of the country's 220 million live in extreme poverty.

Yet more than a third of the revenue collected by the government is used to pay the interest on its public debt.

IN UGANDA, where foreign creditors are owed $12 billion, demonstrations in July targeted corruption.

And in KENYA, which has $35 billion worth of external debt, some protesters have said they are ready to march again after the latest news of impending tax increases.

In many African countries, there has been zero per capita income growth in the past decade. The debt crisis has caused the value of many currencies to depreciate, further sapping purchasing power.

THE DEBT OVERHANG leaves countries unable to make the kind of investments that could put their economies on stable footing, which would enable them to repay their loans.

In Kenya, the central bank announced in June that private creditors would get $500 million of a World Bank loan.

As the Finance for Development Lab report concluded, '' The global community is currently funding loans to developing countries, which end up ' leaking out ' to pay off other creditors. ''

The Publishing continues into the future. The World Students Society thanks Patrcia Cohen.

With most respectful dedication to the Global Founder Framers of The World Students Society - and then Leaders, Debt Lenders, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world.

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