The prospects for private capital flows in the context of current debt problems in sub-Saharan Africa

The combination of low levels of private finance in the past, the decline in new private commitments and inflows, the increasing debt service burden, growing payment difficulties, and the difficult external macroeconomic environment, especially the serious adverse terms of trade and the collapse in commodity prices, including oil prices, indicate that the prospects for future private capital flows to sub-Saharan Africa will continue to be bleak in the foreseeable future. Home remittances by sub-Saharan Africans working or living abroad, repatriation of flight capital, and debt equity swaps are not viable sources of foreign private capital flows to sub-Saharan Africa either. App., notes, ref.