At a recent conference in Paris, President of France Emmanuel Macron announced the cancelation of Sudan’s $5-billion debt to the country as a nod to its progress with financial reforms.
Macron reached the decision on May 17 after critical deliberations with a range of public figures, including Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote and Sudanese entrepreneur and philanthropist Mo Ibrahim.
“The reduction of Sudan’s debt that we are going to soon initiate is the first result of these reforms, and this trajectory should be consolidated, both economically and politically,” Macron was reported as saying by Arab News.
Following the announcement was a bridge loan from the United States to clear $1.15 billion in arrears with the World Bank for the North African country. This in turn was followed by a deal with the UK and European countries to clear a $425-million backlog with the African Development Bank, The Africa Report reported.
Sudan, one of the most highly indebted emerging countries in Africa, saw its debt climb to astronomical levels of at least $60 billion during decades of authoritarian rule under ousted former President Omar Al-Badri.
The nation’s transitional military-civilian power-sharing government, which took over after a revolution in 2018-2019 and is now led by Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, has made immense efforts to pull the country out from decades of economic sanctions and isolation.
Sudan has made impressive efforts to ensure much of its debt is forgiven under the International Monetary Fund and World Bank’s Highly Indebted Poor Countries scheme, including arrears to multilateral lenders.
With the bulk of the country’s multilateral debt forgiven, it can move forward to settling its $38-billion debt to bilateral creditors.
Sudan is also seeing the bulk of its bilateral debts cleared as Italy and Germany commit to clearing their shares of Sudan’s debt, which total $1.8 billion. In comparison, Norway is set to cancel Sudan’s $100 million debt to the country.
