Mo Ibrahim on the need to reform international financial institutions 

AFRICA IS AT the sharp end of the global “polycrisis”: the converging effects of climate change, the pandemic and the Ukraine war. None is of its own making. And the polycrisis comes as more than 800m people on the continent struggle to get enough to eat. More than half of low-income countries in debt distress or at risk of it are African. The continent is also home to the ten countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, from storms to droughts and beyond–despite its low carbon emissions. On top of this, Africa is the continent with the lowest rates of energy access. Some 600m people lack electricity and more than 930m are without clean cooking fuels.

Africa is a huge continent with many countries. The challenges facing Morocco are not the same as those facing Mauritius or Mozambique. Yet there are improvements that could help all. African governments need to strengthen their governance and their institutions, as some have already begun to do. They also need additional money. This problem is exacerbated by Africa’s lack of representation at, and participation in, the global institutions that matter so much to its development. These institutions comprise the global financial architecture set up at Bretton Woods after the second world war.