Debt, Development, and Dependence: The New Political Economy of Africa's External Financing

This paper interrogates Africa’s contemporary reliance on external borrowing and its implications for development, state capacity, and structural transformation. While external financing has re-emerged as a central tool for addressing fiscal and infrastructure gaps, it simultaneously reproduces patterns of dependence and vulnerability. Using a dual political economy framework that integrates postcolonial/dependency and structural perspectives, the study situates Africa’s debt cycle within longer historical trajectories of dependent development. Employing qualitative political economy methods, the paper shows that debt functions as a political relation that reshapes policy autonomy, distributive outcomes, and development priorities. It argues that without deliberate strategies of structural transformation, productive diversification, and institutional strengthening, Africa’s external financing will continue to manage constraints rather than overcome them. The paper contributes to debates on development finance by re-politicising debt and embedding it within broader struggles over power, accumulation, and development in Africa.