{"id":18586,"date":"2025-09-12T19:30:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T19:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/18586\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T19:30:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T19:30:09","slug":"debt-power-black-paper-unpacking-africas-financial-crossroads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/18586\/","title":{"rendered":"Debt, Power &#038; Black Paper: Unpacking Africa&#8217;s financial crossroads"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanaweb.com\/GhanaHomePage\/television\/news\/Debt-Power-Black-Paper-Unpacking-Africa-s-financial-crossroads-BizTech-135135\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/77855090.295.jpg\" alt=\"Professor Godfred Bokpin is an economist\" title=\"Professor Godfred Bokpin is an economist\" width=\"295\" height=\"162\" \/> play video<\/a>Professor Godfred Bokpin is an economist<\/p>\n<p id=\"article-123\"> Africa\u2019s public debt has reached a staggering $2.14 trillion in 2024, rising sharply from $1.8 trillion just two years earlier.<\/p>\n<p>The cost of servicing external debt remains high, with projections for 2025 standing at $88.7 billion, only slightly below the $89.4 billion recorded in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>As the continent faces mounting financial pressure, economists and policy experts are calling for deep structural reforms and a push toward restorative justice to address the root causes of the crisis.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanaweb.com\/GhanaHomePage\/people\/person.php?ID=3718\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">GhanaWeb<\/a>\u2019s BizTech, Professor Godfred Bokpin, a finance scholar at the University of Ghana, described debt as \u201cthe new form of colonization,\u201d arguing that Africa has yet to fully uncover and embrace its true identity.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanaweb.com\/GhanaHomePage\/business\/Africa-s-creditors-must-cancel-the-continent-s-debts-ITUC-Africa-1998400\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Africa&#8217;s creditors must cancel the continent&#8217;s debts \u2013 ITUC-Africa<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The discussion also spotlighted the Black Paper, a research-driven initiative examining the continent\u2019s debt landscape and its broader implications.<\/p>\n<p>According to UNCTAD\u2019s 2023 report, four countries, Chad, Ethiopia, Ghana, and Zambia, have already defaulted on their debt obligations.<\/p>\n<p>Alarmingly, seven African nations now spend more on interest payments than on education, while 25 allocate more to debt servicing than to healthcare.<\/p>\n<p>This edition of BizTech was hosted by <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanaweb.com\/GhanaHomePage\/people\/person.php?ID=3786\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Ernestina Serwaa Asante<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Watch the latest edition of BizTech below:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"play videoProfessor Godfred Bokpin is an economist Africa\u2019s public debt has reached a staggering $2.14 trillion in 2024,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-18586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}