Stop the Bleeding: A Campaign to End Africa’s Financial Hemorrhage

Maputo, Aline ASSANKPON

The Campaign: Stop the Bleeding

The campaign “Stop the Bleeding” aims to address the financial hemorrhage that Africa is experiencing due to the loss of resources, taxes, duties, and capital. Mame Diarra Ndiaye Sobel, the Secretary General of the African debt campaign, explains that “blood loss is always dangerous, it suffocates and causes death. And all the resources that the African continent is losing are killing the continent and depriving it of its subjects.”

The campaign seeks to take advantage of the use of resources at the continental level by trying to preserve what is being lost. This includes addressing issues such as taxes, duties, and capital that organizations do not pay, as well as illegal financial flows and debt servicing that is a bottleneck for the continent.

The Feminist Approach to Debt

The campaign also focuses on the feminist approach to debt, which aims to inform and build capacity, as well as advocate and influence. Mame Diarra Ndiaye Sobel emphasizes the importance of African communities, citizens, and governments understanding the concept of feminism and how it can affect the daily lives of citizens and economies.

The feminist approach prepares organizations and stakeholders for the long-term inclusion of women. When women are educated and trained, they can go far thanks to the emerging global financial architecture. The campaign also welcomes the progress made in bringing together major African organizations with pan-African values to work towards a common and agreed point of view.

Recommendations

Following the analyzes made on the architecture of debt from a feminist perspective, Mame Diarra Ndiaye Sobel suggests adopting a programmatic approach through three relevant recommendations for concrete actions.

The first recommendation is capitalization, which includes the establishment of a working group to synthesize the conclusions of the forum, reinforced by research that already exists in order to obtain data to propose pragmatic action plans.

The second recommendation involves establishing a multi-actor dynamic at national level, which includes governments very actively. The African Group must be technically strengthened, supported, and deployed around relevant, agreed, and promising discussion points.

The third recommendation includes forming a rapid joint feminist bid in the process of reforming the global financial architecture. Feminist organizations must be supported to draw up an application to be effectively integrated into the Agenda of the upcoming conference.