Kenya Eurobond Freeze Makes 2023 the Year Africa Got Locked Out
- First year since 2009 without a Sub-Saharan Africa dollar bond
- Ivory Coast, Senegal seen most likely to issue if market opens
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Kenya’s announcement that it’s giving up on plans to sell a dollar bond make it all but certain that 2023 will close without a single international bond offering from a nation in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The drought of issuance shows the disproportionate impact that higher US interest rates are having on the world’s poorest continent, as surging borrowing costs force African governments to tighten belts, restructure debts or seek alternative funding. The last time Sub-Saharan African countries spent a full year without an international bond sale was 2009, in the midst of the global financial crisis.