Will African nations ever be able to repay their debt?
Africa is a continent rich in natural resources with a young population. African nations in theory have the potential to transform their economies. But many of them are facing mountains of debt.
Africa's external debt climbed to more than $650bn last year.
More than half of African countries are either in debt distress or teetering on the edge. But credit restructuring is painstakingly slow, and many governments end up spending more on servicing their debt than on healthcare or education.
The debt problem has plunged many nations into economic crisis with rising unemployment and poverty.
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Al Jazeera
3 days ago
- Al Jazeera
‘Disgusting abomination': Why is Elon Musk slamming Trump's budget bill?
Billionaire Elon Musk has lashed out at United States President Donald Trump's budget bill, describing it as a 'disgusting abomination', less than a week after he left the administration and at a time when the legislation is expected to come up for voting before the Senate. The so-called 'One Big Beautiful Bill' passed in the House of Representatives in late May has come under increasing scrutiny not just from opposition Democrats but from sections of conservatives, including a handful of Republican senators, and Musk. Musk, who headed the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), set up by Trump to cut waste in public spending, left the administration on May 29. He had criticised the bill a day before his stint in government ended, but in much more muted language than the words he used on Tuesday. But why is Musk so opposed to the bill, why is the legislation so important to Trump, and how does it square with the president's other stated fiscal priorities? 'I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination,' Musk wrote on X, the social media platform he owns. 'Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.'In another post, Musk wrote, 'Mammoth spending bills are bankrupting America! ENOUGH.' The world's richest man continued his tirade against the bill on Wednesday. 'This immense level of overspending will drive America into debt slavery!' he wrote on X. Musk claimed the bill would 'massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to $2.5 trillion'. The US government's budget deficit has been rising. It stood at $1.83 trillion in the 2024 fiscal year, according to the Department of the Treasury. This is not the first time that Musk has criticised the 'One Big Beautiful Bill', even mocking its name in a television interview in late May. 'I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful. But I don't know if it can be both. My personal opinion,' Musk told CBS journalist David Pogue on May 27. He added that he was 'disappointed to see the massive spending bill'. At DOGE, Musk was tasked with slashing US government infrastructure – a mandate that saw his team push through a significant culling of the federal workforce, with thousands laid off. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the government's foreign aid diplomacy arm, was also gutted, leaving critical public health initiatives, among others, struggling for survival in several emerging economies. In the interview with Pogue, Musk suggested that profligate government spending through the bill would undercut the gains made by DOGE in saving tax dollars. The 'One Big Beautiful Bill' is the centrepiece of Trump's legislative agenda and aims to deliver on a series of his campaign promises. It extends the tax cuts Trump introduced during his first term in office in 2017. At the same time, however, it earmarks funding for other priorities of the current administration. It sets aside, for instance, $46.5bn to continue work on constructing barriers along the US-Mexico border to stop migrants and refugees from entering the country. On social media, Trump has described the bill – characteristically, in all caps – as a 'WINNER' and as a 'BIG GROWTH BILL'. The bill carries financial – and many believe political – costs. To finance Trump's priorities, the bill in its current form would dramatically cut social security programmes that millions of Americans depend on. Funding for Medicaid subsidies will drop by $698bn, according to estimates by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO). More than 71 million Americans were enrolled under Medicaid as of January 2025, according to government data. The programme offers health insurance to low-income Americans. The bill will also snip $267bn in funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), better known as food stamps, according to the CBO. An estimated 41 million Americans used food stamps in 2024. Many critics of the bill have said these cuts leave the most vulnerable Americans even more exposed to healthcare crises and food shortages. But others, especially at the conservative end of the political spectrum, have pointed to how the bill will further bloat the country's debt. The current US federal debt limit stands at $36.1 trillion, set on January 2, 2025. But that gives the government no leeway to borrow any more, since the federal government is currently $36.2 trillion in debt. The new bill proposes raising the debt ceiling by $4 trillion. That has angered some Republicans. Rand Paul, a Republican senator from Kentucky, on Tuesday backed Musk's criticism of the bill. 'I agree with Elon. We have both seen the massive waste in government spending,' Paul wrote on X. 'We can and must do better.' Paul has said he will try to block the bill in its current form in the Senate, where Republicans have a razor-thin majority. In the House, the bill passed with 215 votes in favour, and 214 against: all Democrats voted against it, joined by two Republicans, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Warren Davidson of Ohio. Yes, in many ways, the bill's proposal to raise the debt ceiling contradicts another Trump campaign promise – to cut debt. DOGE was set up with that in mind, and the Trump administration has justified slashing foreign aid by arguing that it would curb US debt. Trump has also argued that the tariffs he has imposed – and wants to impose – on a range of countries and goods will help the US trim its debt, though many economists have challenged the logic behind that claim.
Al Jazeera
4 days ago
- Al Jazeera
Who is Lee Jae-myung, South Korea's new president?
Lee Jae-myung's hardscrabble path to the South Korean presidency mirrors his country's stratospheric rise from grinding poverty to one of the world's leading economies. When Lee, a scandal-prone school dropout-turned-lawyer who was elected in a landslide on Tuesday, was born in 1963, South Korea's gross domestic product (GDP) per capita was comparable with sub-Saharan African nations. South Korea was so poor, in fact, that Lee's exact birthday is a mystery – his parents, like many families alert to the sky-high infant mortality of the era, took about a year to register his birth. Yet even by the standards of the day, Lee's early years were marked by deprivation and adversity, including stints as an underage factory labourer. Known for his populist and outspoken style, Lee, the standard bearer for the left-leaning Democratic Party, has often credited his humble beginnings with moulding his progressive beliefs. 'Poverty is not a sin, but I was always particularly sensitive to the injustices I experienced because of poverty,' Lee said in a speech in 2022. 'The reason I am in politics now is to help those still suffering in the pit of poverty and despair that I managed to escape, by building a fair society and a world with hope.' The fifth of seven children, Lee dropped out of school in his early teens to move to Seongnam, a satellite city of Seoul, and take up employment to support his family. At age 15, Lee was injured in an accident at a factory making baseball gloves, leaving him permanently unable to straighten his left arm. Despite missing years of formal education, Lee graduated from middle and high school by studying for the exams outside of work hours. In 1982, he gained admission to Chung-Ang University in Seoul to study law and went on to pass the bar exam four years later. During his law career, Lee was known for championing the rights of the underdog, including victims of industrial accidents and residents facing eviction due to urban redevelopment projects. In 2006, Lee made his first foray into politics with an unsuccessful bid for the mayorship of Seongnam, which he followed two years later with a failed run for a parliamentary seat in the city. In 2010, he finally broke into politics by winning Seongnam's mayoral election on his second attempt and went on to earn re-election four years later. From 2018 to 2021, Lee served as governor of Gyeonggi, the country's most populous province, which surrounds Seoul. Both as mayor and governor, Lee attracted attention beyond his immediate electorate by rolling out a series of populist-flavoured economic policies, including a limited form of universal basic income. After stepping down as governor, Lee entered the national stage as the Democratic Party candidate in the 2022 presidential election, which he lost to Yoon Suk-yeol by 0.73 percent of the vote – the narrowest margin in South Korean history. Despite facing a slew of political and personal scandals, culminating in at least five legal cases, Lee led the Democratic Party to one of its best results in last year's parliamentary elections, delivering it 173 seats in the 300-seat National Assembly. After Yoon's impeachment and removal from the presidential office following his short-lived declaration of martial law in December, Lee earned his party's nomination without serious challenge, garnering nearly 90 percent of the primary vote. 'His communication style is direct and straightforward, and he is astute at recognising social and political trends, which is a rare quality among politicians of his generation in Korea,' Lee Myung-hee, an expert on South Korean politics at Michigan State University, told Al Jazeera. 'However, this direct communication style can sometimes hinder his political advancement, as it may easily offend his opponents.' During his election campaign, Lee played down his progressive credentials in favour of a more pragmatic persona and a milder iteration of the populist economic agenda that powered his rise to national prominence. In the weeks leading to the vote, Lee's victory was rarely in doubt, with his closest competitor, Kim Moon-soo, of the conservative People Power Party, often trailing the candidate by more than 20 points in opinion polls. As president, Lee has pledged to prioritise the economy, proposing, among other things, a major boost in investment in artificial intelligence, the introduction of a four-and-a-half-day work week, and tax deductions for parents in proportion to the number of children they have. On foreign affairs, he has promised to mend relations with North Korea while pushing for its ultimate denuclearisation – in keeping with the traditional stance of his Democratic Party – and maintain the US-Korea security alliance without alienating China and Russia. 'I would call him a progressive pragmatist. I don't think he will stick to any consistent progressive lines or even conservative lines,' Yong-chool Ha, director of the Center for Korea Studies at the University of Washington, told Al Jazeera. 'Critics call him a kind of manipulator; his supporters call him flexible,' Ha said. 'I would say he is a survivor.' While Lee will enter office with the backing of a commanding majority in the National Assembly, he will take stewardship of a country that is deeply polarised and racked by divisions following Yoon's impeachment. 'The Korean political landscape remains highly polarised and confrontational, and his ability to navigate this environment will be crucial to his success,' said Lee, the Michigan State University professor. Lee will also have to navigate a volatile international environment shaped by the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, great power rivalries, and United States President Donald Trump's shake-up of international trade. For Lee personally, his election, after two unsuccessful bids for the presidency, marks an extraordinary comeback befitting the against-the-odds origin story that propelled his rise. Lee had been facing five criminal proceedings, including charges of election law violations and breach of trust in connection with a land corruption scandal. Following his election, Lee is all but certain to avoid trial during his five-year term in office. Under the South Korean constitution, sitting presidents enjoy immunity from prosecution, except in cases of insurrection or treason – although there is debate among legal scholars about whether the protection extends to proceedings that are already under way. To remove ambiguity, the Democratic Party last month passed an amendment to the criminal code stating that criminal proceedings against a person who is elected president must be suspended until the end of their term.
Al Jazeera
4 days ago
- Al Jazeera
The Rwanda-DRC peace deal must include the voices of the voiceless
More than three decades after the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda plunged the African Great Lakes region into unprecedented turmoil, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) continue to struggle in establishing collaborative and neighbourly relations for the collective benefit of their peoples. Following the genocide, in which approximately 800,000 people were killed in just 100 days, hundreds of thousands of Rwandans – including some members of the defeated Rwandan armed forces and militias responsible for the genocide – crossed into the DRC and settled in refugee camps in the country's east, close to the Rwanda border. This became a security concern for the new government in Rwanda. The eastern DRC has not seen peace since. In 1996, the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (AFDL), a coalition of Rwandan, Ugandan, Burundian, and some Congolese dissidents, launched a war against the government of Zaire. The AFDL, primarily a Congolese movement against the Zaire leadership but receiving significant support from the governments of Rwanda and Uganda, ousted President Mobutu Sese Seko and brought Laurent-Desire Kabila to power. However, this change in government and the brutal dismantling of Hutu refugee camps that accompanied it did not usher in meaningful intra-governmental collaboration or an end to Rwanda's security concerns. Over the subsequent decades, Rwanda's government continued to monitor the perpetual conflict in the eastern DRC, citing concerns about dissidents based there. According to United Nations reports, since 2012, this involvement has included direct support for the M23 rebel group waging an uprising against the DRC government. In January 2025, following numerous UN reports confirming Rwanda's support for M23, the DRC government severed diplomatic ties with Rwanda. Subsequently, Rwanda's development partners imposed sanctions on the country, some of its officials, and the Gasabo Gold Refinery, requesting Rwanda to halt support for M23 immediately and withdraw its troops from DRC territory. For the benefit of Rwanda, the DRC, and the entire region, the conflict in the eastern DRC and the decades-old tensions between the two neighbouring governments need to come to an end. As someone deeply invested in delivering democracy and development to all Rwandans, I have long called on the Rwandan government to engage in positive diplomacy to resolve its differences with the DRC government. Rwanda must engage in such diplomacy to overcome its structural constraints to development as a small, landlocked country with limited natural resources. If it resolves its issues with its neighbour, Rwanda could finally achieve true regional integration, participate in lucrative regional supply chains, and become a dependable partner to the wider international community. The peace deal the United States is currently attempting to broker between Rwanda and the DRC could put Kigali on the path to achieving all these gains. However, certain conditions are necessary for any peace deal between the DRC and Rwanda to be effective. As many have suggested, I agree that only a peace deal supported by a bilateral mineral cooperation incentive, guaranteed by a global power like the US – which would help control competition for natural resources – has a chance of succeeding. After all, there is little doubt that illicit trading of minerals has been used to finance the conflict in the eastern DRC. Yet this dark trade is not the fundamental cause of the conflict, and its cessation alone cannot resolve the issues between the two neighbours. The root cause of the eastern DRC conflict is, in fact, a lack of good governance and robust democracy across the African Great Lakes region. Lack of democracy, justice, and respect for human rights, coupled with social and economic exclusion, has caused Rwandans who survived the brutal dismantling of Hutu refugee camps not to return to Rwanda, and others to leave the country to seek refuge in regional states. Some Congolese have also made their way to Rwanda, escaping war, persecution and exclusion. According to the most recent figures by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, there are still more than 200,000 Rwandan refugees in the DRC and close to 83,000 Congolese refugees in Rwanda. There are more Congolese refugees in other regional states, such as Uganda, which hosts more than 600,000 of them. Some of these refugees have been enrolled in armed groups. All this has enabled power holders to abuse their authority and create chaos in the eastern DRC. While illicit trading of minerals has financed the conflict, the fundamental cause of the violence remains the lack of good governance and the inability or unwillingness of authorities to address the core concerns of refugees – the reasons why they sought refuge in either Rwanda or the DRC, and why they do not want to return to their countries of origin. The US can help address this problem and bring sustainable calm to the region by including a condition in the peace deal it is currently brokering that requires the Rwandan and Congolese governments to engage in direct dialogue with their respective opposition – both within and outside their borders – as well as with refugees, and commit to achieving good governance based on political inclusiveness, respect for human rights, and the rule of law. This would enable the voluntary and dignified return of refugees to their countries of origin and could finally put an end to the decades of chaos in the eastern DRC. Rwanda does not even need US pressure to embark on the path of positive diplomacy and dialogue, as a continuous quest for solutions through dialogue is one of the fundamental requirements of its constitution. The Rwandan opposition has already expressed its eagerness to enter into such constructive dialogue with the government. Four years ago, in June 2021, we submitted to the Rwandan government a roadmap for a promising future, officially requesting an inter-Rwandan dialogue to be organised. Similar efforts are under way in the DRC. Opposition figures in the country have recently called for an inter-Congolese dialogue to resolve internal governance issues. It is high time for Rwanda and the DRC to engage in dialogue with their respective refugees and opposition members, both within and outside their countries. This will ensure not only the long-term success of a Washington-brokered peace deal but also lead to trust-building between state officials on both sides and pave the way for true regional cooperation, which will help both nations prosper after finally achieving peace. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.
