Addis Ababa – At the Second Africa Climate Summit (ACS2), which took place in Addis Ababa a couple months ago, I delivered a warning that every G20 government should heed: Africa cannot finance its future while drowning in debt.
The numbers speak for themselves: Sub-Saharan Africa requires $143 billion in annual climate finance, equivalent to roughly 7 per cent of its total GDP. But current climate-finance flows into the region amount to only one-quarter of that. At the same time, African countries spent nearly $90 billion in 2024 servicing external debt.
Africa’s debt crisis is not a fringe issue; it is one of the biggest obstacles to achieving global climate goals and advancing the continent’s development….