Author: Contribution

Senegal as an illustration of a new paradigm of productive reconstruction By Dr. Papa Demba Thiam The annual African Governors Caucus of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund provides a privileged moment for reflection on the economic challenges facing the continent. The 2026 edition, held in Banjul, comes at a particular moment. Across Africa, governments are simultaneously seeking macroeconomic stability, debt sustainability, investment recovery, job creation, and structural transformation of their economies. Senegal perfectly illustrates this situation. The resumption of discussions with the International Monetary Fund offers an opportunity to move beyond the narrow framework of macroeconomic adjustment to…

By Ilyes Zouari, President of CERMF (Circle of Study and Reflection on the Francophone World). According to the latest ranking by the African Development Bank, Senegal and Ivory Coast are the most industrialized countries in the ECOWAS region, and the only representatives of West Africa in the top 10 in Africa. They surpass Nigeria and Ghana by a wide margin, and also outperform all countries in continental East Africa. This performance is the result of a more favorable business, investment, and industrialization environment. In its latest report on industrialization in Africa, published on May 24 and entitled “Industrialization Index in…

By Aboubakr Kaira Barry, CFA, Managing Director, Results Associates, and Chair of the Omou Financial Literacy Center, Bethesda, Maryland, USA Guinea’s balance of payments — the country’s annual scorecard of money coming in and going out, expressed in US dollars — tells a story that is more complex than the usual mining-boom narrative. It shows how much money comes into Guinea from all sources, not just mining, and how much leaves through imports, profit outflows, and other payments. Foreign investors are clearly betting big on Guinea. Between 2020 and 2024, foreign direct investment — long-term money put into mines, infrastructure,…

By Lansana Gagny Sakho The 2026 Labor Code Project of Senegal can be read in two ways. The first, reassuring, consists of seeing it as a reform of social progress, which modernizes labor law, strengthens employee protection, and improves Senegal’s international image. The second, more lucid, reveals a text adopted in a context where regional competitiveness has become fierce and where each additional burden must be offset by equivalent gains in productivity, simplification, and stability. In a country where sectoral strikes are already frequent, the adoption of a more protective, more restrictive, and more costly Labor Code must be analyzed…

By Andy Shima At a time when geopolitical tensions are weakening international balances and multilateralism is regularly challenged, institutions inherited from the post-war period seem to be seeking a new impetus. In this uncertain landscape, the International Organization of La Francophonie is trying to reinvent itself, gradually shifting from a space centered on language to a broader actor in political, economic, and digital cooperation. At its helm, since 2019, Louise Mushikiwabo has been imprinting a vision that gives momentum and ambition to an institution in full mutation. The contemporary world is going through a deep phase of recomposition. Armed conflicts…

By Blaise Jeutang Ndongmo Kendah, Deputy General Manager Activa Vie Cameroon Teacher at IIA and ESSFAR In recent years, life insurance companies in the CIMA zone have gradually gained a positive reputation because they almost always fulfill their commitments to policyholders. This result is not random, but rather the result of rigorous actuarial management. To ensure the fulfillment of these commitments, actuaries use an essential mechanism called mathematical provisions (PM), which allows life insurance companies to have the necessary funds to honor their contractual obligations. According to the CIMA Code in its article 334-2, Mathematical Provisions are defined as the…

By Ruth Verika NIOBE* With a few weeks to go before the 5th session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (3-13 August 2026, New York), the United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation is entering a critical phase. Initiated by the African Group in 2023, substantive negotiations began in August 2025 and will continue until 2027 — with four more sessions planned after August, including the next one in Nairobi from 30 November to 11 December 2026. This initiative has received massive support — 110 countries in favor, 8 against, 43 abstentions when voting on the Terms of Reference in…

By Dr Cheikh Kanté, former Minister of State, associate professor at universities Since independence, sub-Saharan Africa has been the focus of over 580 summits, conferences, and international forums dedicated to development. However, the architecture of aid remains fragmented, opaque, and often ineffective. This system has gradually become a trap whose harmful effects are now denounced by a new generation of African intellectuals, economists, and policymakers. While the latest G7 summit continues the tradition of many international summits addressing Africa’s development, it does not introduce a structural break in aid governance or in concrete instruments capable of sustainably improving the prosperity…

By Aboubakr Kaira Barry, Managing Director, Results Associates, and Chairman of the Board of the Omou Financial Literacy Center, Bethesda, Maryland, United States The fundamental problem in Senegal is not the level of its debt; it is the lack of visibility on the state’s resources. You cannot manage what you cannot see. Vitor Gaspar, former director of the IMF’s Fiscal Affairs Department, emphasized that most governments do not really know what they own or what they owe. This article argues that the debt-to-GDP ratio is a misleading measure of Senegal’s solvency, proposes public net worth as a better alternative, explains…

By Dr. Mohamed H’MIDOUCHE Creative artificial intelligence is already transforming video, video games, animation, digital caricature, advertising, education, and cultural industries. For Africa, the challenge goes beyond technological adoption: it is about whether the continent will be able to mobilize investments, finance its talents, protect its cultural data, valorize its languages, and master its narrative in the era of platforms and generative models. The issue: creating value without losing control of the narrative Artificial intelligence is entering a new phase. After being mainly associated with automation, language models, and decision support, it is now becoming a powerful engine of cultural…

Professor Amath Ndiaye, FASEG – UCAD. The Multi-year Budget and Economic Programming Document (DPBEP) 2027-2029 marks a return to a certain realism in the management of public finances. By postponing the objective of reducing the budget deficit to 3% of GDP to 2029, the Government adopts a more credible trajectory considering the magnitude of budget imbalances and financing constraints facing Senegal. However, this budgetary realism is accompanied by a significant revision of growth ambitions. The Vision Senegal 2050 framework and its National Development Strategy (SND 2025-2029) aim for an average annual GDP growth rate between 6.25% and 6.5%, with a…

Juliana Amato Lumumba, candidate from the Democratic Republic of Congo for the position of Secretary-General of the International Organization of La Francophonie, believes that “Francophonie must become an economic power”. Read her article. When we talk about Francophonie, we spontaneously think of a language, a shared history, a community of values. We often forget that it also constitutes one of the largest economic spaces in the world. With nearly 390 million speakers, 20% of global merchandise trade, and over 16% of global GDP, Francophonie is already an economic reality. However, it does not yet act as such. At a time…

By Issa Malgoubri, CEO of SGI Image Finances Internationales, Lead arranger and Lead placement manager The first Sukuk of the State of Burkina Faso is not just a financial innovation. It is a national, regional, and international call to finance economic sovereignty through ethics, real economy, and trust. There are operations that mobilize resources. And there are operations that mobilize a Nation. The launch of FCES SUKUK BURKINA RENAISSANCE 6.80% 2026-2035 belongs to this second category. With this issuance of 75 billion CFA francs, structured in the form of a Common Sukuk Issuance Fund, the State of Burkina Faso achieves…

By Ismael Sy, Journalist, correspondent for Financial Afrik in Casablanca In our opinion, the idea that intellectuals should serve the underprivileged has its limitations. The history of the world is nothing but a class struggle and the reproduction of class relations. An intellectual serving the weak can contribute to the construction of a different class system. The history of certain communist regimes has shown how some intellectuals who thought they were supporting a form of social justice woke up with a bitter taste in their mouths. How the weak of yesterday turned into the tyrants of today. These intellectuals thus…

By Prof. Abderrahmane MebtoulUniversity professor, PhD in economics, certified accountant from the Institut supérieur de gestion de Lille, former Director General of Economic Studies and former First Counselor at the Court of Auditors. The decision made on June 19, 2026 by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) marks an important step for Algeria. Meeting in plenary session in Paris, the international organization responsible for combating money laundering and terrorist financing (AML/CFT) officially removed Algeria from its list of jurisdictions under enhanced monitoring, commonly known as the “grey list”. Namibia also benefits from this decision. This development is a positive signal…

By Pr Amath NDIAYE, FASEG-UCAD. The debate on Senegal’s public debt has led to the use of several expressions – hidden debt, undeclared debt, false statistical declarations (misreporting) or odious debt – which do not cover the same realities. The first three generally refer to the same phenomenon: the existence of financial commitments that have not been properly recorded or declared in official statistics. The notion of odious debt, on the other hand, relates to a different issue, more legal and political in nature. *What the Court of Auditors found* The Court of Auditors does not systematically use the term…

By Joëlle TRAORÉ, PhD in tax law from the University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONES IN ETHIOPIA In April 2024, Ethiopia adopted Proclamation No. 1322/2024, repealing the industrial parks regime established by Proclamation No. 886/2015. This text establishes a new legal framework for special economic zones (SEZs), expands their sectoral scope, and strengthens the tax incentives offered to investors. For an investor, the question is not so much about what the text provides, but rather about evaluating the actual impact of the fiscal mechanism on the decision to establish a presence. A change in framework, not just terminology The…

NATION BRANDING AND SOFT POWER: WHY AFRICAN COUNTRIES MUST TAKE CONTROL OF THEIR NARRATIVE In the era of the attention economy, a country’s reputation has become a strategic asset as valuable as its natural resources. STRATEGIC OPTIMISM The Africa we are building – By Thione Niang “Thinking Africa. Inspiring action. Building the future.” Africa possesses the greatest natural wealth on the planet, the youngest population in the world, and exceptional economic potential. Yet, despite these undeniable assets, many of our countries continue to be defined by narratives constructed elsewhere. For decades, we have exported our raw materials while letting others…

By Issa Cheiguer The controversy over fuel prices has at least one merit: it has brought Mauritanian economic policy out of silence. It has forced choices to be expressed, numbers to circulate, positions to be confronted. I joined in with a first contribution. I return today, not to reopen the same file, but to look further: towards the fundamentals of the economy, towards the promises of gas, towards a social safety net whose most recent figures reveal a reality broader than previously thought. I always write as an attentive citizen, with no other legitimacy than that of verified facts. The…

Dr Beringer GLOGLO – Economist, former advisor to the General DirectorateMr. Gilbert NYATANYI – Counsel at Janson, former CEO of the Rwanda Sovereign Fund The financing deficit for development in Africa remains one of the most structuring challenges facing the continent. The social stakes are immense, while the global financial environment is becoming increasingly fragmented and constrained. According to the African Development Bank (AfDB, 2024), Africa will need to mobilize $495.6 billion per year, approximately 17% of its projected GDP for 2024, until 2030 to accelerate its structural transformation and converge towards the most performing emerging economies. By 2063, this…

After showing, in “From the Naira to the Franc, the same servitude,” that the monetary regime does not decide the productive fate of an economy, and then identifying, in “What money cannot do,” the limits of the monetary instrument itself, economist Dr. Chérif Salif SY addresses a question that these two observations leave open: on what grounds does dependence become readable and decidable? This ground has a name, the exchange rate. By Chérif Salif Sy Money is not a neutral instrument that the State uses to stabilize prices: it is a social relationship, and most African disputes over monetary sovereignty…

Towards a Strategic State Orchestrating Capital By Antoine Christian Gomis, Founder, Bridge Africa Capital Senegal is entering a critical phase of its economic development: infrastructure needs continue to grow while the sovereign balance sheet’s capacity to finance them is gradually diminishing. For over a decade, the country’s transformation has relied on a relatively classic model: the State borrows, the State builds, the State bears the majority of the financial risk. This model has led to significant progress in road, port, energy, and logistics infrastructure. But it is now reaching its limits. The Senegalese public debt, revised upwards after the February…

On May 29, 2026, Abdoulaye, “Gorgui,” “the old man” in Wolof, turned 100. On this occasion, the Senegalese government pays tribute to this political figure whose legacy transcends political divisions on June 4 and 5, 2026. The commemoration was postponed because it coincided with Eid al-Adha – the Tabaski festival. By Eric Topona, Journalist, Writer, Former Secretary General of the Chadian Journalists’ Union (UJT). Some birthdays have a particularly symbolic dimension because they celebrate a longevity that we are not accustomed to. This is the case of those rare individuals who can claim and be proud of the exceptional existential…

By Eric Topona, Journalist, Writer, Former Secretary General of the Chadian Journalists Union (UJT). ​On May 31, 2026, an oil tanker named Tagor was intercepted by the French navy in the Atlantic. This ship was associated with the Russian “ghost fleet” (a network of tankers used to circumvent sanctions related to the war in Ukraine). It was sailing under a suspicious or falsified flag, which justified the intervention. Journalist Eric Topona reflects on the “ghost fleets” and the usurpation of African flags. Since the imposition of Western sanctions due to its aggression in Ukraine, Russia has continuously boasted about the…

By Raphael Nkolwoudou, PhD in Law, Senior Lawyer in digital law and Contract Manager, Teragone Solutions – Paris, France. Imagine a field hospital in northern Mozambique, after a cyclone. The roads are cut off, the relay antennas lie on the ground, and the only link with the outside world is a thin beam rising towards a swarm of low-orbit satellites. This scene, experienced recently during cyclone Idai, sums up the promise of satellite constellations: to offer reliable communication when everything collapses around. For Africa, it is not a luxury. It is a necessity. The continent remains highly exposed to violent…

By Soukeyna LY, Energy engineer and macroeconomist; Founder of the think tank PRONA FUTURES; Montreal, June 8, 2026. As Senegal seeks to restore its macroeconomic credibility with its financial partners, the issue of energy subsidies emerges as one of the most sensitive trade-offs in the coming years. The country no longer has time to engage in purely theoretical debates. With public debt now estimated at over 130% of GDP (according to 2026 estimates, after the discovery of undeclared commitments), a debt service that absorbs an increasing share of state revenues, and energy subsidies costing nearly 1,800 billion CFA francs over…

By Abderrahmane Mebtoul, University Professor, international expert, PhD in Strategic Management in 1974 The 2026 World Cup is jointly organized by three countries: the United States, Canada, and Mexico. It is the first time in the history of the competition that three nations have come together to host the tournament, which features a record format of 48 teams. The host countries have gone all out. The infrastructure and logistics have allowed the teams to focus solely on the game. Sport, like music and culture, is a factor for bringing peoples together. If each team proudly and passionately waves its flag,…

By Beatrice Blondin Diop, Founder and CEO of Béaba Senegal’s entry into the circle of oil and gas producing countries marks a historic turning point. With the Sangomar oil project, operated by Woodside, and the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim gas project, operated by BP on the Senegal-Mauritania border, our country is not only discovering a new source of public revenue. It is also discovering a strategic question: how can we ensure that the exploitation of our natural resources does not only result in exports, tax revenues, and performance reports, but in a real transformation of the local economic fabric? This is…

By Dr Mohamed H’MIDOUCHE As the World Bank reopens the door to responsible nuclear energy financing, Africa must not remain on the sidelines of the new geopolitics of dispatchable low-carbon power. Small Modular Reactors could become a strategic option for industrialization, digital sovereignty and energy security — provided they are financed, regulated and secured with the highest standards. In a previous article published by Financial Afrik on 22 March 2026, I argued that Small Modular Reactors — SMRs — could become one of the strategic instruments of Africa’s new geopolitics of dispatchable energy. That analysis now carries renewed relevance.…

By Dr. Ananou Foly, Economist & Dr. Gloglo Beringer, Economist The initial paradox By the end of 2024, Senegal and Benin offer two radically different macroeconomic trajectories. Senegal reveals one of the largest debt concealments in the continent’s history: a real debt-to-GDP ratio of 99.7% compared to the reported 74.4%, an average budget deficit of 11% of GDP over 2019-2023 compared to the stated 4.9%, and approximately $7 billion of hidden debt according to the IMF. On the other hand, Benin shows a growth rate of 7.5%, a deficit reduced to 3% of GDP, an S&P rating of BB- with…