Malawi president urges global community to write off African countries' debts

LILONGWE, Malawi

Malawi's President Lazarus Chakwera has urged the international community to consider restructuring and possibly writing off African countries' debts to bilateral and multilateral institutions.

Addressing the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, Chakwera said African countries are going through "hardships" in meeting their debt service obligations.

“We are trying everything possible to manage our debts, but if you could consider either restructuring or completely writing off some of these debts, Africa would have a ‘breathing space,’”Chakwera suggested.

According to the World Bank, Africa's external debt increased from $1.12 trillion in 2022 to $1.152 trillion by the end of 2023.

African Development Bank (AfDB) President Akinwuni Adesina recently warned at a summit in Washington that "non-transparent" resource-backed loans are undermining Africa's immense economic potential, complicating debt resolutions and jeopardizing countries' future growth.

According to Adesina, African countries spend 65% of their GDP on servicing external debt.

“I think it’s time for us to have debt transparency and accountability and make sure that this whole thing of these opaque natural resource-backed loans actually ends, because it complicates the debt issue and the resolution issue,” he added.

Lately, the World Bank and the US government have urged Malawi to "properly manage" its external debt, which currently totals $4 billion.