Amplifying Africa’s Voice – Global Financial Architecture, MDB Reform and Climate Finance
November 25, 2022
On November 15, ACET and Finance for Development Labs (FDL), in collaboration with the Transformation Leadership Panel (TLP), launched the Amplifying Africa’s Voice initiative, which seeks to amplify Africa’s voice in the dialogue on reforming the global financial architecture.
About the Initiative
The Amplifying Africa’s Voice initiative will support a process of engagement, knowledge sharing, research, and advocacy with a select group of African economic policy institutes and thought leaders. This process will lead to a better understanding of, and appreciation for, the global financial architecture challenges. It will also lead to African-led analysis, research, and perspectives that will be translated into both policy briefs for African leaders and advocacy content. Likewise, such engagement will provide opportunities for global experts and African experts to share ideas, comment on research, and identify solutions.
Partnerships
The initiative will engender partnerships between economic policy institutes, joint analysis and research, and common positions on issues such as SDR rechanneling, enhanced DSSI, the Common Framework, liquidity and/or sustainability frameworks, natural disaster clauses, debt management and relief, capital adequacy, MDB reform, and climate finance. The initiative will be coordinated by ACET and FDL, while crowding in African and global experts, as well as African institutions and the TLP. Ideally, the partnership among African policy institutes on the topic of global financial architecture will evolve into a long-term collaboration to collectively address key issues related to global and continent-wide issues that might otherwise not be an area of focus for African policy institutes. Partners will include African economic policy institutes.
Initial partners include:
| Regional or pan-African institutions | National institutions |
| African Center for Economic Transformation | ECES (Egypt) |
| African Economic Research Consortium | BIDPA (Botswana) |
| Centre for the Study of the Economies of Africa | IPAR (Rwanda) |
| Policy Center for the New South | KIPPRA (Kenya) |
| South African Institute for International Affairs | |
| Institute for Strategic Studies | |
| AUDA-NEPAD Policy Bridge Tank | |
| Laboratoire de Finances pour le Développement (LAFIDEV) |
Representatives from ten economic policy institutes participated in the event:
- African Center for Economic Transformation – Rob Floyd
- African Economic Research Consortium – Dianah Ngui Muchai
- AUDA-NEPAD Policy Bridge Tank – Pamla Gopaul
- Centre for the Study of the Economies of Africa – Mma Amara Ekeruche
- Finance for Development Labs – Ishac Diwan
- Institute for Strategic Studies – Mustapha Jobarteh
- Policy Center for the New South – Hafez Ghanem and Badr Mandri
- South African Institute for International Affairs – Neuma Grobbelaar
- Laboratoire de Finances pour le Développement (LAFIDEV) – Babacar Sene
- KIPPRA (Kenya) – Moses Njenga
Outcomes from the event
There was general validation that greater collaboration among African policy institutes on the global financial architecture agenda is needed and welcomed. Participating think tanks confirmed their interest in partnering on knowledge sharing, analysis and advocacy. Current efforts such as the G20 commissioned Capital Adequacy Framework (CAF), the Bridgetown Agenda and the MDB Reforms were highlighted by ACET. FDL provided a framing for the initiative around the need for new growth paths, finance in the short and longer term, debt, MDB reforms and new funds and institutions.
Partner organizations highlighted past, ongoing, and planned work on global financial architecture issues. For example, ISS gave a brief on the African Futures forecasting model for external financial flows and the Africa Tomorrow blog platform that addresses many of these themes. SAIIA emphasized their work on the Africa-China relationship, opportunities to influence policymakers on these topics via the T20 and the importance of NDB reform as part of the dialogue. CSEA provided a brief on their reports on debt management and how to operationalize the Common Framework, as well as the CoMPRA program which looks at government policy responses prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, including those related to finance and debt. The PCNS is doing work around climate adaptation and green tech, but is also exploring why global financial structures are not working and where Africa fits in a quickly evolving world where globalization is often not functioning well.
In Kenya, KIPPRA is finalizing work on public debt trends, and also has programs on green economy, climate finance flows, climate smart agriculture and renewables. As well, KIPPRA is assessing climate smart investment opportunities across a range of sectors. AERC is focusing on issues such as financial inclusion in EAC, opportunities and challenges for green tech, and has started work on SDR financing. ACET convenes the Transformation Leadership Panel to advocate on issues such as climate finance, is preparing to undertake a perceptions analysis of African leaders on the global financial architecture and is undertaking research in areas such as absorptive capacity for increased financial flows. FDL has established a network of Chinese researchers on the finance agenda, is completing a study on debt and growth in North Africa and has ongoing work related to the emerging debt crisis.
There was general agreement that topics for the next few meetings should focus on:
- Green finance given COP27 (December 2022),
- MDB reform given the deadline for a World Bank reform roadmap (January 2022)
- Growth strategies in a new global setting (February 2022)
- Improving access to capital markets (credit rating agencies, enhancements) (March 2022)
Other topics of particular interest include:
- Debt workouts and instruments (April 2022)
- Non-traditional donors/investors – China and others (May 2022)