UN General Assembly
2025

Just imagine, 64%. With little need for liquidity support, they didn't need the money anyway, but they got 64%. While the poorer countries received just 2.4%. What a disconnect. The imbalance highlights how the very institutions meant to safeguard global finance stability often perpetuate inequality and instability. I have argued, and I say it again, that the current global financial architecture punishes poor countries with high interest rates and enormous conditionalities, while rewarding rich nations with lower interest rates and softer lending rates. Its rules, priorities, and allocation mechanisms consistently favour those already prosperous, while trapping vulnerable economies in cycles of debt, high borrowing costs, and inadequate access to emergency support and concessional funding. It is imperative to transform these institutions into genuinely independent, apolitical global bodies that their operations are aligned with their global mandate. Such a shift would democratise decision-making, restore credibility, and allow the IMF and the World Bank to serve all countries fairly rather than reinforcing old hierarchies. But Africa is not merely waiting for external prescriptions.