How cheaply a government borrows depends a great deal on its credit rating, and three American firms hand out most of them. Moody's, S&P and Fitch control an estimated 95% of the world's credit-rating business, and for years African leaders have argued that the grades Africa gets are unfair.
The African Union has responded by building a rating agency of its own. Named the Africa Credit Rating Agency (AfCRA), it is headquartered in Port Louis, Mauritius, and the AU scheduled its launch there for Wednesday evening. African leaders endorsed the idea in 2018, so it has been nearly a decade coming, and by The Africa Report's reckoning it arrives a little over a year behind schedule.
The AU frames it as a matter of money. Its own figures put the continent's yearly external debt service, the repayments and interest owed abroad, at $163 billion in 2024, up from $61 billion in 2010, and in most African countries interest payments now exceed public spending on health or education. South Africa pushed borrowing costs onto the G20 agenda during its 2025 presidency.
Then there are the countries with no grade at all. Of Africa's 55 states, 23 carry no rating from the big three, which cuts them off from international bond markets, and AfCRA says it will cover them. The continent had fewer than 4,000 credit ratings of any kind at the end of last year; Europe had 141,600 back in 2022.
The bias argument, and the reply
The complaint behind it is that the big three misjudge African risk and downgrade too quickly in a crisis. The APRM, the AU body that set AfCRA up, said last year it seeks to correct systemic biases that have historically disadvantaged African nations. The agencies reject that, saying they apply the same methods everywhere, and a 2024 Reuters investigation into Africa's debt crisis found no evidence of systemic bias in their sovereign ratings.
The big three are also buying into Africa's own raters. Moody's owns GCR, the largest issuer of ratings on the continent, and in July S&P agreed to take a majority stake in Agusto & Co, the Nigerian rater.
Who owns it, and who checks
The AU calls AfCRA private and self-funded, with governments banned from holding shares, yet no shareholders, chief executive or board have been named, and there is no date for a first rating. An APRM note cited by Semafor says it will need a licence from Mauritius's financial regulator.
South Africa has a hand in it too. Plus94, a South African research firm, is AfCRA's technical adviser, and a brief from the policy platform Katanomics points out that its chief executive, Sifiso Falala, also runs a small rater, Sovereign Africa Ratings. Katanomics wants AfCRA to publish its shareholder register, its paid-in capital and how Plus94 was picked.
Credibility is the part no launch can hand over. Daniel Cash, a UK law professor who has advised the APRM, told Semafor the real test comes the first time AfCRA gives an influential member state a rating it strongly dislikes.
