Coronavirus crisis demands that the G20 give debt relief to sub-Saharan Africa

With the IMF and World Bank spring conference approaching, research underlines need to bail out world's poorest countries

For more than two years the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have warned that sub-Saharan Africa stands on the verge of a debt crisis. Ever since commodity prices began to fall in 2015, the public finances of nations stretching from Nigeria to Kenya and Chad to South Africa have deteriorated.

If China is the manufacturing centre of the world, Africa is its chief supplier of essential materials, from oil and copper to the rare-earth minerals used in mobile phones. As China's manufacturing waned in the middle of the last decade, so did the crucial foreign earnings that keep African nations afloat.

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