African ambassador criticizes IMF, World Bank for not giving enough loans

cnbc.com:

BEIJING — An ambassador of an African country to China has criticized the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank for restrictive lending policies.

«The problem is that the ratings we are making for the African [countries] should be different,» Ibrahima Sory Sylla, ambassador for the West African country of Senegal, said Thursday at an event at Peking University.

He said ratings from Fitch or Standard and Poor's don't take into account local factors such as food security — but they are the basis for IMF and World Bank assessments of economic sustainability.

The number of people in West Africa experiencing an acute lack of food surged by nearly 40% in a year, according to a Reuters report in December citing the United Nation's World Food Programme. The figure surged 60% during that time for the number of East Africans, the report said.

Senegal significantly increased its borrowing from China in 2021 and 2022, according to the Chinese Loans to Africa database managed by Boston University's Global Development Policy Center.

While that reflected a spike in West African borrowing, such loan activity was more muted in other parts of Africa — reversing a growth trend of the last 20 years, the data showed.

«What we can understand is that so many [multilateral development banks] through the G20 [debt] suspension initiative, they said you have to go through this initiative, but when you [do so], they suddenly decided to downgrade your risk,» Senegal's Sylla said. «And most of the developed countries, the Western countries, they can go beyond to 200% of the ratio between the debt and the GDP. Their rating is not downgraded.» 

The IMF, World Bank and S&P did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.

A Fitch