By Cheikh Fall, Founder of The Third Path Africa
This piece builds on our earlier commentary responding to the IMF’s development finance agenda: The IMF’s Diagnosis Is Sound—But the Prescription Needs African Agency👉🏿 The IMF’s Diagnosis Is Sound—But the Prescription Needs African Agency
This commentary builds on our earlier response to the IMF’s policy paper on development finance, where we argued that financing must be authored—not merely administered—by the Global South. In that op-ed, we challenged the notion that technical soundness alone can deliver justice, and called for African agency in shaping the terms of engagement. Here, we extend that critique to the World Bank’s push for radical debt transparency, emphasizing that visibility must be matched by voice, and data by design. Sovereign accountability begins not with disclosure, but with the power to define what is disclosed, to whom, and why.
Axel van Trotsenburg’s call for radical debt transparency is both timely and necessary. The World Bank’s latest report rightly warns that hidden liabilities, off-budget borrowing, and opaque restructuring deals are eroding trust and compounding debt distress across low-income countries. But transparency alone will not fix a system that remains structurally tilted against African agency.
At Third Path Africa, we believe the real issue is not just what debt is disclosed—but who controls the terms, the tools, and the narrative. Debt transparency must be a stepping stone toward sovereign accountability, where African institutions—not external auditors—define the standards, lead the reconciliation, and shape the restructuring frameworks.
The rise of unconventional financing—private placements, central bank swaps, collateralized deals—has outpaced the governance tools designed to manage them. Yet the response remains technocratic: build digital platforms, improve reporting, and standardize disclosures. These are useful, but insufficient. Without political authorship, transparency risks becoming a compliance exercise rather than a pathway to resilience.
We’ve seen this before. The HIPC Initiative and Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative were breakthroughs—but they were also externally driven, with limited space for African co-design. Today’s debt landscape is even more complex, and the stakes are higher. What’s needed is not just better data—but a new architecture, one that centers African priorities, protects against extractive restructuring, and enables long-term, sovereign financing.
Transparency must serve transformation. That means:
• Regional debt resolution mechanisms led by African institutions
• Public disclosure standards co-authored by African finance ministries and civil society
• Binding commitments to recurrent, affordable financing—not just emergency relief
If we are serious about protecting development gains and preventing another lost decade, we must move beyond visibility and toward voice. Third Path Africa stands ready to help build that future—not as a data recipient, but as a sovereign architect.