Sovereignty: The Only Way Out of Africa's Debt Trap.

We devote one-third of our budget to servicing the external debt, only to then struggle to get that very debt canceled.

This is how I summarize the HIPC Initiative, which Côte d'Ivoire reached in 2009 and then again in 2017.

We must therefore ask ourselves the right question: why do we borrow? 

To invest, we are told. And the key element any investor looks at before investing is the ROI (Return on Investment), the profit that investment could generate.

So, logically, we invest in a profitable activity; unless our desire is to lose money and end up buried in debt if the investment capital comes from a loan. And so, we find ourselves with a debt service we struggle to honor, hence the recourse to debt relief.

And as soon as we obtain this debt relief, we can borrow again to invest in what is not profitable for us, consequently, we cannot meet our financial obligations; we resort once more to debt relief.

Thanks to this debt relief, the funds we used for debt service could henceforth be used to invest, to create assets and wealth in the country. But after a few years, we have no wealth and we resort to another "HIPC initiative" which will undoubtedly be named something else.

To solve this endless cycle, African states must therefore:

1. Create value, which implies making wise investments that are profitable. Or

2. Commit symbolic "hara-kiri" to point to the true problem of their sovereignty, which will allow us to invest in what is profitable for us.

The first solution requires creativity to establish a socio-economic and financial model adapted to our economic and financial ecosystem, based on a clear ideology and vision.

The second solution, which involves acquiring sovereignty, must be followed by the establishment of innovative government policies.

The first solution requires "soft power" and the second, "hard power". But upon closer inspection, these two solutions cannot be applied without each other; if we are not sovereign, we cannot implement innovative government policies. These innovative government policies, which would lead to wise investments that create value, can only succeed if we are sovereign.

Therefore, creating value for African states requires sovereignty, which of course is not something one can beg for, given its geopolitical and economic implications.

Creating value for African states cannot be done by multinational corporations that come to set up operations there. These investments by multinationals in our countries can only be profitable for our development if they fall within the framework of our innovative government policies, whose short-term result must be to energize our primary sector and, in the long term, the creation of a tertiary sector of strong local industries, as China has done.

Why is this the case? We often say that the one who brings the money decides, and these multinationals come to our countries with their conditions because we are not sovereign. The contracts signed with them are on the order of 85% for them and 15% for us. When will we get to 50/50, given that they operate on our territory, use our labor, and our resources, to produce, and sell these products to our populations, and often export their products, for which our only benefit is taxes, from which some of them are even exempt?

What can we do then if we do not acquire our sovereignty? Make economic investments in infrastructure and hope that future generations bring us this sovereignty? To paraphrase President Houphouët-Boigny who said in the 1980s, "I know we are being robbed, but what can we do? I hope that future generations will fix it." And 32 years after his death, should we, the future generations of yesterday, in turn rely on the future generation yet to be born?

Marius Y. M. C. Oula