So far, African leaders and policymakers have tried really hard to replicate the rapid economic development process experienced by Asian economies in the last decades. This has been done both by trying to transplant many of the development tools adopted by such countries (for instance, the Special Economic Zones, largely used by China for stimulating industrial development and transform its economy), and by formulating industrialization policies that have flourished almost everywhere in the continent, both at level of single States and of Regional Economic Communities. Inspired by economic development patterns such as the “developmental State” approach, which had one of its main supporters in Africa in the Malawian economist Thandika Mkandawire, so far the success has not been so spectacular as many would have expected.

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The 2024 Mid-Year Outlook of the Africa Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) shows that the first half of 2024 was marked by more positive changes in outlooks and rating upgrades of several African countries by the three most important rating agencies in the world: Standard & Poor's (S&P) Moody's and Fitch. The work of these agencies basically consists in expressing an opinion on the ability of States to repay commercial debts contracted with international lenders based on a comprehensive economic analysis of their financial markets. The reason why these ratings are important is that they are used by investors in their investment appraisal process and by borrowers in setting the interest rates to be applied on the money they lend. A poor credit rating means that a loan to a certain State has a higher risk to remain unpaid, which prompts an increase in the interest charged to that nation as a measure aimed at compensating for the substantial risk of lending.

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