This think tank will be officially launched on May 6 in Abidjan, the economic capital of Cote d’Ivoire.
By Ibrahima Dione
The rate of debt of African states is often controversial.
It has a way of trascending the economic world.
A new Round-Table on African Debts (A new ROAD) was born to take part in the debate with an ambitious objective: “to impose a new look on the continent, its economies and their central role on the international scale.”
The 24 members of this think tank, who want to deconstruct preconceived ideas, have made “a commitment to conduct a collective and participatory reflection in line with the work currently being carried out on the sustainability of African debts and, more generally, the financing of these economies.”
In the future, ROAD hopes that “the prism of analysis of the issue of African public debt will evolve” because “Africa is not over-indebted.”
On the contrary, it is “under-financed and poorly financed.”
To reverse the trend, this think-tank intends to mobilise so that “the commercial conditions of financing applied to African states are consistent with those practised (with equivalent economic and risk profiles) in other regions of the world.”
ROAD brings together personalities such as Félix Edoh Kossi Amenounvé, Director General of the Regional Stock Exchange (BRVM), Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, former French Minister of National Education, Higher Education and Research, Omar Cissé, Chairman and CEO of InTouch, Kako Nubukpo, former Minister of Foresight and Public Policy Evaluation of Togo, Mario Pazzini, Director of the Development Centre of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Stanislas Zézé, Chairman and CEO of Bloomfield Investment Corporation.
Following the Abidjan roundtable, a summit on financing African economies is scheduled to take place on 18 May in Paris, France.
ID/lb/as/APA