Ghana’s former President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has made a compelling case for massive debt relief for Africa as part of climate reparation and compensation for the continent’s sacrifices in an increasingly unfair global financial system.
Sending an urgent and powerful message to the global community, the former Ghanaian President asserted that Africa’s escalating debt burden, now exceeding $1 trillion, is not merely an economic issue but a “moral indictment”.
He called for immediate action, emphasising that relieving Africa’s debt is a strategic choice for global stability and shared growth.
“When Africa rises free from the weight of debt, the whole world rises with it,” he reiterated.
Speaking at the AU-EU High Level Seminar on the eve of the AU-EU summit on Thursday, October 2, 2025, in Brussels, Belgium, former President Akufo-Addo delivered a scathing critique of the global financial system, declaring the sobering truth that it is “not built to free us. It is built to bind us”.
He called on leaders to summon the courage to reform a system that forces nations to keep choosing between “paying their creditors and protecting their citizens.”
Scale of injustice
Former President Akufo-Addo starkly outlined the human cost of the debt crisis, which is affecting spending on public health in Africa.
Research, he pointed out, indicates that more than 30 African countries are now spending more on interest payments alone than on public health.
Former President Akufo-Addo noted that every dollar diverted to creditors is a dollar “taken from a hospital, from a child’s vaccination, from a community’s future”.
He condemned the inequity where interest rates for African borrowers are often “double or triple those faced by wealthier nations,” turning loans into “shackles rather than lifelines.”
This, he argued, is “inequity, not economics”.
“Act of Justice” and climate reparation
Former President Akufo-Addo renewed his long-standing call for African debt cancellation, asserting that “justice delayed is justice denied.”
He introduced a critical new framework, arguing that debt relief is not an act of generosity, but an “act of justice”.
Mr Akufo-Addo proposed a programme of ‘Debt Relief for Green Investment and Resilience’, which would directly link debt cancellation to investments in climate adaptation and sustainable growth.
He noted that much of the debt the continent carries was incurred in responding to climate shocks “not of our making.”
The former President linked debt relief to the moral duty of reparation for climate damages affirmed by the International Court of Justice.
Call for global compact
Reflecting on Ghana’s experience with the G20 Common Framework in 2023, former President Akufo-Addo noted that while it offered some relief, including restructuring about $13 billion in Eurobonds, the process was complex and exposed “deep structural weaknesses of the global financial system”.
He called the framework “fundamentally flawed” because it lacks binding rules to hold all creditors, public and private, to fair burden-sharing.
To European partners who hold four seats at the G20 table, Mr Akufo-Addo urged them to support South Africa’s G20 Presidency to advance ambitious reforms.
He also urged an immediate debt service suspension, comprehensive restructuring, a shift from the current process to a binding global compact that compels all creditors to participate.
By Kyei Boateng
