SYMPOSIUM ON THE AFRICAN FINANCIAL ARCHITECTURE AND THE AFRICAN MULTILATERAL FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS IN CONTEXT

This symposium takes on two exciting developments in Africa in the field of international financial institutions: the African financial architecture and African multilateral financial institutions. While the Bretton Woods institutions — the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, institutions that have been well understood, studied, lauded, and criticized through the entire post-war period — the African financial architecture has been understudied. The world of public development finance is populated by a wide variety of multilateral institutions, and many of the African multilateral financial institutions have been missed, misunderstood, and marginalized. This Symposium seeks to shift the focus from the Bretton Woods institutions to these under-appreciated African multilateral financial institutions. In doing so, the authors seek to recentre the most pressing debates around development finance, including the reform of the international financial architecture and debt restructuring.