While the International Monetary Fund (IMF) debt sustainability analysis as of February 2021 shows that the majority of countries in West Africa have remained in moderate debt distress, a further analysis indicates that debt accumulation prior to the outbreak of Covid-19 outpaces the ability of growth performance to support debt servicing.
Sadly, of the fifteen-member states of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), eleven of them are currently in debt distress. A new report by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group and the Open Society Initiative for West Africa has disclosed that Nigeria and 10 other Economic Community of West African States countries are currently in debt distress based on debt sustainability analysis. The 10 other countries are Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, the Gambia, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Niger, Senegal, and Togo. The report, titled ‘Debt Management, Restricting and Sustainability in ECOWAS’, was recently launched at the Debt Management Office here in Abuja.
