Africa's first G20 must put debt justice at the heart of the inequality agenda

When the G20 meets in Johannesburg, it will do so on African soil for the first time. The symbolism is profound. Africa is not merely another stop on a global diplomatic circuit. This year, the continent is host. And the theme – inequality – is one that Africans understand not as an abstract policy challenge but as a daily reality shaped by the rules of the global financial system.

The G20’s new report on inequality is an overdue acknowledgement that widening disparities now undermine political stability, development and social cohesion across the world. But if the G20 is serious about addressing inequality, then it must confront one of the most powerful drivers of unequal outcomes: the unjust global fiscal architecture that governs how African states raise, manage and repay public resources.

For decades, Africa has been framed as a debtor continent. Yet the continent is not poor – it is made poor. Its fiscal systems are shaped by external pressures, opaque negotiations, colonial legal legacies and global rules that restrict the ability of African governments to mobilise and spend resources in line with the needs of their populations. Inequality is not accidental. It is constructed.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the continent’s debt burden. Many African governments spend more on servicing debt than on health or education. But the problem is not borrowing itself – every country borrows. The problem is the terms, the opacity, and the power imbalance built into the current system.

Africa pays more for borrowing than any region in the world, not because it is riskier, but because global credit assessments and financing terms often ignore economic fundamentals in favour of narratives rooted in outdated assumptions. When crises do emerge, restructurings can take years. Zambia waited three. Ghana’s fiscal adjustment has pushed austerity deep into the social sector. Kenya faces rising repayment pressures even as the cost of living climbs. These experiences reinforce a simple truth: a debt system that places the greatest burden on those with the least fiscal space is a system designed to produce inequality.

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Debt justice is therefore not a slogan. It is a prerequisite for development. And it rests on principles that African scholars – including Ibn Khaldun centuries ago – have long emphasised: transparency, accountability, fairness, justice, effectiveness and responsibility. These are not abstract ideals. They are the benchmarks of a fiscally legitimate state. When they are absent, inequality flourishes.

Today’s debt architecture fails all six.

Negotiations remain opaque. Parliaments and citizens are often excluded from decisions that will shape their country’s future for a generation. Creditors face no obligation to disclose terms or assess human-rights impacts. Borrowing frameworks lack transparency. And austerity conditions frequently fall hardest on communities with the least capacity to absorb them.

At the same time, African countries lose far more each year through illicit financial flows and aggressive tax avoidance than they receive in loans. No conversation about inequality is complete without acknowledging this basic asymmetry: Africa is a net creditor to the world. Yet it pays interest as if it were the opposite.

The G20 in Johannesburg offers a rare opportunity to confront these structural injustices. If inequality is truly the organising principle of this summit, then three commitments are essential.

First, the G20 must support a fair, timely and transparent sovereign debt workout mechanism. No country should wait years for relief because creditors cannot coordinate. Rules must be predictable, human-rights based, and shield essential public services from harmful cuts.

Second, global tax rules must change. African countries need stronger taxing rights, updated treaties, and a global approach that treats multinational companies as unitary entities. Without tax justice, debt justice is impossible.

Third, borrowing decisions must be brought into the open. Parliaments should have clear oversight, governments must publish terms, and creditors should disclose the full conditions attached to their lending.

Africa did not choose the rules that constrain its fiscal space. But hosting the G20 gives the continent an opportunity to help rewrite them. Inequality will not be solved by statements of concern. It will be solved by building a global fiscal system anchored in justice.

Debt justice is where that work must begin.

Professor Attiya Waris is a UN expert on foreign debt and international finance, a professor of fiscal law at University of Nairobi and author of Financing Africa.

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