United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has decried Africa’s underrepresentation in the global financial architecture.
Guterres says the imbalance is apparent, and it disadvantages the continent “just as it lacks a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.”
“The world has changed. Global governance must change with it,” Guterres said on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday.
“We need reforms to make global frameworks truly universal and representative of today's world,” he added.
His remarks come on the back of a push by African leaders to get “fairer” credit terms and drawing rights from regional and global lenders such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Strict loan terms
Kenyan President William Ruto has been vocal about the need to have favourable financial agreements that would enable African nations to develop and at the same time meet their recurrent expenditure needs.
Ruto says African countries are treated as “high-risk borrowers”, and are therefore issued with stricter terms and high interest rates when seeking credit.
At the World Bank, for instance, the United States, Japan, China, Germany and the United Kingdom have the most voting power despite the global lender having a membership of more than 170 nations.
At the IMF, there are at least 190 member states, but the major economies have the highest drawing rights.
