Development Reimagined published on 1 September 2020 a study titled "COVID-19 in Africa: Is the Crisis Over? Or Has It Just Begun?"
Most of this study discusses the current impact of COVID-19 in Africa, but it leads with a useful pie chart of $8.3 billion in debt payments due in 2020. So far, 20 of the 38 eligible African countries have applied and negotiated successfully with the Paris Club of lenders for debt payment suspension during 2020. But as the pie chart shows, this accounts for only 24 percent of total payments due in 2020. China accounts for 35 percent of payments due in 2020 and has separately renegotiated some of these payments. The remainder of the payments are owed to private banks, international financial institutions, and countries other than China or members of the Paris Club.
Consequently, this initiative by the Paris Club and China will have limited impact on Africa for three reasons: (1) institutions/countries that are NOT suspending payments in 2020 account for 41 percent of the total; (2) many of Africa's 54 countries are not included in this initiative because they exceed arbitrary income thresholds; and (3) the suspensions only apply to payments due in 2020.
