“We have this tagline, ‘Africa the Rule Maker, not the Rule Taker,’ and therefore we need to be at the table when global rules on financial architecture decisions are being made and being designed,” said Jason Braganza, AFRODAD executive director, last week in Washington, D.C., at the IMF-World Bank annual meetings. A new analysis by the Britain-based activist group, Debt Justice, found that the relative strengthening of the U.S. dollar will increase the burden of foreign debt repayments by 14% for lower-income nations, while interest rates on new loans taken by low-income countries will increase by 5.7 percentage points — nearly triple the rate increase for borrowers in the United States. Braganza’s remarks come as many African debt organizations push for African states to have a higher voting quota with the International Monetary Fund and World Bank — a fundamental reform in the international financial and debt architecture. The IMF revealed last week that public debt amounts to about 60% of sub-Saharan Africa’s gross domestic product, with 19 of the region’s 35 low-income nations currently facing debt distress or the risk of it. AFRODAD’s demand that African nations must help to shape the rules that govern their loans is part of a larger, international movement for debtor rights. “Millions of people around the world are caught in multiple crises of public health, economic recession and climate change. Mounting debts mean mounting debt service, resulting in cuts to budgets for healthcare, and education, decent housing and other essentials,” said Lidy Nacpil, coordinator of the Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development, in a statement. Nacpil said many countries had already defaulted, or were at risk of default, even after years of debt servicing and meeting austerity demands by creditor nations, while sacrificing their own needs. “Governments should have changed their debt payment and borrowing policies and also demanded debt cancellation before they reached that point,” Nacpil said. She also noted that debt burdens have prevented many governments from addressing climate change. In the U.S., debt debates center on the $1.7 trillion in student loans collectively owed by 45 million individual borrowers — and whether it is advisable, or ethical, for the cost of higher education to effectively saddle graduates with debt that many are forced to repay over decades or the rest of their lives. In August, President Biden announced a new program of debt relief for qualifying borrowers of federal student loans. According to U.S. debt-abolition advocate Astra Taylor, “People who are in debt have to worry about making that next payment. It’s a source of anxiety and stress. It changes your psychology.” | 
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