Executive Summary
In February 2025, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change published A New Debt Deal for Africa: Breaking the Vicious Cycle. This paper addressed the current, unjust debt challenge facing many African nations and called for a new global debt deal.
Despite significantly lower debt-to-GDP ratios than the G7, African countries face interest costs that are four times higher than those of G7 member countries. Because of this, on average African governments spend 18 per cent of all government revenues on interest alone: money that could be used instead to invest in roads, ports, skills, schools and hospitals.
The current global financial system, shaped through the activities of the global banking system, investors and…