President of the African Development Bank, Akinwumi Adesina, has warned that Africa must end corruption and illicit capital flows that bleed more than $580 billion annually to tackle its growing $2 trillion debt crisis.
Adesina, in an interview with Bloomberg in Maputo, Mozambique’s capital, emphasized that without stemming these illicit capital flows, Africa will continue losing crucial financial resources despite any additional funding.
Adesina painted a vivid picture: “It doesn’t matter how much water you pour into a bucket if the bucket is leaking,” illustrating how inflows vanish if corruption leak isn’t addressed.
He added that reducing these leakages would allow Africa to retain resources needed for essential investments such as infrastructure and public services.
According to AfDB estimates from May, Africa loses about $1.6 billion daily to “financial leakages,” including $90 billion per year via illicit flows, $275 billion siphoned by multinational corporations, and $148 billion lost to corruption. Those figures highlight that illicit capital flows Africa eclipse what the continent receives in foreign aid and investment combined.
Adesina flagged that many African nations now spend more servicing external debt than on public health, echoing findings from a working paper by Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center and the Institute for Economic Justice. This African debt crisis leaves virtually no fiscal space for infrastructure, education, job creation, or health, despite an annual infrastructure backlog estimated at $170 billion.
While acknowledging the need for more concessional finance and debt restructuring, Adesina insisted that curbing illicit financial flows must be front and center of any strategy to reduce the $2 trillion debt burden. Only by closing the corruption leak can African countries preserve scarce resources and build sustainable development.