00:00Since 1957, when newly independent countries like Ghana and Sudan joined the International Monetary Fund, IMF,
00:08Africa has become an integral part of the international lender.
00:12The IMF says one of its main goals is to provide diverse financial support to many of struggling economies in Africa,
00:20with a long-term goal of ending poverty.
00:23Our biggest role to help Africa is to support Africa to grow.
00:29So growth is the best way to beat debt.
00:33But over five decades later, African economies are walloping in unsustainable debts, plunging them into cyclic economic crisis.
00:41So what good is the IMF for the continent?
00:45Welcome to The Flipside.
00:47When you mention the IMF and its financial programs and interventions, which continent comes to mind as the biggest client?
00:56Well, I guess Africa won't be missing from the list, right?
01:00African countries have made it a habit to turn regularly to the IMF for resources when hit by global and internal shocks.
01:0748 African countries collectively owe the IMF $42.2 billion.
01:14That is nearly one-third of the IMF's total outstanding credit, making the African continent a significant borrower of the IMF.
01:21We work very closely with African countries to be a source of liquidity and reserves for them.
01:28But juicy as that may sound, IMF financial support have always come with tighter conditions.
01:34Terms like austerity, privatization, liberalization, deregulation and currency devaluation are often associated with loans from the IMF.
01:45Some analysts say these policies and conditions attached with the IMF loans alongside bad economic management by African countries have resulted in making the situation worse than better.
01:56The IMF's less emphasis on long-term economic development has been one of the biggest problems of Africa.
02:07African countries may seem to be major clients of IMF, but in reality, they have only been able to access a smaller share of IMF's resources.
02:16Over the period from 1952 to 2023, the IMF made a total of 1,529 loan commitments, of which around 40%, that is 608, were to African countries.
02:31Over the same period, in volume terms, Africa accessed less than 10% of the IMF's total commitments.
02:38So should African countries turn to other alternatives, such as BRIC superpowers, China and Russia, who provide loans with lesser conditions?
02:48Let us not hoodwink ourselves into believing that we can get somebody who would leave his own problems and come and solve our own problems.
02:56I believe that Africa has enough resources to be able to stand on its own, negotiate on its own, without any backing, without any support from anybody.
03:08At the moment, the IMF wants to open up and give Africa more representation.
03:13That's obviously a plan to keep Africa closer, but it does not look like Africa itself has any plan to be independent of such foreign donor support sooner.
03:23And that is the flip side.
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