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The President of the African Development Bank, Akinwumi Adesina, has said that non-transparent resource-backed loans undermine the economic growth of Nigeria and other African countries.

According to a statement from the bank on Wednesday, Adesina said this at the Semafor Africa Summit on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank 2024 Spring Meetings.

Adesina identified the challenges posed by Africa’s ballooning external debt, which reached $824 billion in 2021, with countries dedicating 65 per cent of their GDP to servicing these obligations.

He stressed that the continent would pay $74 billion in debt service payments this year alone, a sharp increase from $17 billion in 2010.

While acknowledging African nations’ fiscal pressures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, infrastructure needs, and rising inflation, Adesina emphasised the need to address the structural issues in Africa’s debt landscape.

“I think it is time for us to have debt transparency accountability and make sure that this whole thing of these opaque natural resource-backed loans ends because it complicates the debt issue and the debt resolution issue,” Adesina said.

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