Africa’s mounting debt crisis will take centre stage this week as policymakers, scholars, and activists converge on Accra for the fifth African Conference on Debt and Development (AfCoDD V). Running from 27 to 29 August 2025, the gathering is convened by the African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD), in partnership with IDEAs-Africa and the Stop the Bleeding Campaign. Unlike a conventional policy meeting, AfCoDD V is billed as a space for resistance and imagination, one that links financial justice, reparations, and sustainability in a bold new frame.
According to AFRODAD’s latest Debt Heat Map, at least twenty-two African countries are either already in debt distress or edging dangerously close to it. The continent’s total public debt stock has soared to 2.14 trillion US dollars in 2024, a figure driven upward by global economic shocks, the escalating costs of climate disasters, and rising interest rates. Beneath these statistics lies a deeply human crisis: seven countries now spend more on servicing interest than on educating their children, while twenty-five channel more resources into debt repayments than into healthcare. Civil society groups warn that such patterns are eroding progress on the Sustainable Development Goals and undermining prospects for a more resilient future. “This crisis is not about fiscal ratios alone,” AFRODAD said in a preparatory statement. “It is about lives, dignity, and Africa’s future.”
In Accra, delegates are determined to push beyond the technical confines of debt management and situate the debate within a wider history of structural injustice. The theme of this year’s conference, “Africa’s Debt Crisis: A Reparations and Reparative Justice Framework Analysis,” places the notion of reparations at the heart of discussions. Organisers contend that Africa’s debt is not simply a fiscal problem but an odious burden rooted in centuries of exploitation, from the transatlantic slave trade and colonial plunder to the extractive global financial order of today. They argue that reparations must be understood not as charity, but as justice long overdue to a continent whose resources and labour helped build global wealth.
For the first time in its history, the conference will apply a feminist lens to the debate on reparations and debt justice. This approach recognises the disproportionate toll that debt and austerity measures impose on women and girls, whether through diminished access to healthcare, reduced educational opportunities, or greater vulnerability to poverty. By elevating women- and youth-led solutions, participants hope to reimagine financial systems that are not only more inclusive but also better aligned with principles of equity and sustainability.
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Much of the work in Accra will revolve around building a collective African position on debt and reparations, generating scholarship to underpin that advocacy, and mobilizing citizen movements that can sustain pressure for change. In this sense, AfCoDD V is not limited to the halls of the conference venue; its resonance is meant to reach classrooms, communities, and parliaments across the continent. The campaign slogan #SisiNdioTuko, translated as “We are the ones,” captures the spirit of citizen ownership and resistance that organisers are determined to amplify.
The timing of the conference is also significant. It coincides with the African Union’s 2025 theme, “Justice for Africans and People of African Descent Through Reparations,” and is expected to shape ongoing debates at the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. For many observers, the Accra gathering is an opportunity to strengthen Africa’s unified voice in global financial governance and to demand systems that prioritise justice over extraction.
Ultimately, AfCoDD V is being positioned not as another technocratic exercise but as a platform for imagination and renewal. By reframing the debt debate through the lens of reparations, its organisers hope to inspire a broader continental and global movement that links economic sovereignty with climate resilience, social justice, and sustainable development. The message is clear: debt need not be destiny. As AFRODAD’s leadership put it in its preparatory note, Africa can reclaim its future through reparations, just financing, and people-driven movements that assert the right to dignity and self-determination.
Financial justice is inseparable from environmental justice, and without addressing Africa’s debt trap, ambitions for green transitions, climate adaptation, and inclusive development will remain severely constrained. By connecting historical redress to future sustainability, AfCoDD V places the debt crisis not only at the centre of Africa’s development agenda but also at the heart of the global struggle for a just and sustainable future.
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