Explained: France's finance summit for Africa

French President Emmanuel Macron will host African leaders and chiefs of global financial institutions for the Africa Finance Summit this week. 

The platform aims to help Sudan in its transition era and provide African countries with critical financing in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic.

With some two dozen African heads of state due to attend the summit on Tuesday, the occasion will both mark a return to in-person top-level gatherings after the Covid-19 pandemic made video conferences the norm.

Who is attending the summit?

The summit hosts many high-level officials from global financial institutions as well as those from the continent. 

Moussa Faki Mahamat, chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission, and Akinwumi Adesina, chairperson of the African Development Bank (AfDB), will be in attendance.

International financial leaders participating will include IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva as well as World Bank managing director of operations Axel van Trotsenburg. From Europe, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell will take part. 

President Sahle-Work Zewde of Ethiopia will also be among the guests. Ethiopia has been locked in a long dispute with Sudan over water resources that has sometimes threatened to erupt into a wider regional conflict.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame paid a rare visit to France at a time when Paris has been pressing for reconciliation with Kigali after a historic report made clear that the French government failed to stop the 1994 genocide.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is expected to attend the summit as well. The Egyptian ruler will make another journey to its key ally France after his state visit enraged rights activists in late 2020.

Why is the Africa Finance Summit held in France?

Since the announcement of the summit made headlines, many Africans have asked the same question. Honestly, no one knows why a summit where African economies will be discussed is held in France, which is not in Africa. 

Nonetheless, the summit is seen as another effort by French President Macron to strengthen France’s paternalistic relations with its former colonies and beyond in Africa. 

Moreover, Macron like his predecessors, Francois Holland and Nicholas Sarkozy, seeks to build ties with emerging countries which were not colonised by France -such as Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and Ethiopia. 

As a result, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and Mozambique’s President Filipe Nyusi will be in attendance.

What is on the agenda? 

The conference will largely focus on two issues: minimising the negative effects of the Covid-19 pandemic to the African countries and gathering a wider relief for Sudan’s external debt as the country transitions after the ousting of long-time autocrat Omar al-Bashir in 2019. 

Africa has so far been less badly hit by the Covid-19 pandemic than other global regions, with a total of 130,000 dead across the continent. The human catastrophe in India proves it is way too early to give the all-clear.

But the economic cost to the continent is undeniable as the IMF warns that Africa faces a shortfall in funds needed for future development, a financial gap, of $290 billion up to 2023.

Hence the summit will try to fill a financing shortfall of almost $300 billion caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

On the other hand, Sudan hopes to wipe out a $60 billion foreign debt bill this year by securing relief and investment deals at the Paris conference.

Sudan's debts to the Paris Club, which includes major creditor countries, is estimated to make up around 38 percent of its total $60 billion foreign debt.

"We are going to the Paris conference to let foreign investors explore the opportunities for investing in Sudan," Hamdok said.

"We are not looking for grants or donations," he added.

His government has pushed to rebuild the crippled economy and end Sudan's international isolation under Bashir, whose three-decade iron-fisted rule was marked by economic hardship and international sanctions. 

After a long series of negotiations, the US took Sudan off

the blacklist of state sponsors for terrorism last December, removing a major hurdle to foreign investment.