Tinubu demands investor-grade AfCRA as Africa moves to chal

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has challenged the planned African Credit Rating Agency (AfCRA) to earn the confidence of global investors through independence, credibility and rigorous assessments, warning that the continent’s attempt to reshape the way its economic risk is judged will only succeed if international capital trusts its ratings.

Tinubu gave the charge ahead of AfCRA’s official launch on October 7, 2026, after the African Union confirmed a new date for the long-delayed initiative, which is expected to provide an Africa-focused alternative to the dominant global rating agencies, Fitch Ratings, Moody’s and S&P Global Ratings.

The President said Africa was not seeking preferential treatment from the global financial system, but a rating architecture capable of properly accounting for the continent’s economic fundamentals, reform programmes and country-specific realities.

“AfCRA is another step towards that goal. Africa is not asking for favourable ratings. We are asking for fair ratings, grounded in our fundamentals and in the reforms our economies are actually carrying out,” Tinubu said.

He, however, stressed that the credibility of the new agency would ultimately be determined by the quality and independence of its work.

“AfCRA must now earn the confidence of global capital. That confidence will rest on its independence and the rigour of its work,” he added.

The President has been one of the prominent African leaders advocating the establishment of an Africa-owned credit-rating institution, arguing that the continent continues to suffer from what policymakers describe as an “Africa premium”, higher borrowing costs linked to perceptions of risk that they believe do not always reflect underlying economic conditions.

Tinubu had raised the issue in an opinion article published by the Financial Times in February and returned to it at the Africa CEO Forum in Kigali in May, calling for a more context-sensitive approach to assessing African economies.

The African Union said AfCRA will commence operations from its headquarters in Port Louis, Mauritius, with the institution intended to strengthen Africa’s financial sovereignty and provide investors with additional perspectives on sovereign and corporate creditworthiness.

The initiative follows years of complaints by African governments that ratings issued by international agencies can amplify negative market sentiment, raise borrowing costs and deepen fiscal pressures during periods of economic stress.

Countries including Ghana and Zambia have previously challenged the rationale behind successive sovereign downgrades, arguing that rating actions sometimes failed to adequately reflect domestic reform efforts and could worsen their access to international capital.

The debate intensified after the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) challenged Fitch Ratings over its assessment of the African Export-Import Bank, arguing that the rating did not sufficiently account for the unique structure and role of African financial institutions.

For Africa, the stakes are considerable because credit ratings directly influence how investors price government and corporate debt. A weaker rating can translate into higher yields and more expensive borrowing, while an improvement can widen access to international capital and reduce financing costs.

Tinubu said Africa therefore needed financial institutions capable of providing assessments grounded in the realities of individual economies rather than relying exclusively on external perceptions.

In his earlier argument on the issue, he maintained that global rating agencies remain important to international markets but said African economies need institutions able to capture factors such as reforms, domestic resilience, structural opportunities and policy changes that may not always be fully reflected in conventional risk models.

The launch of AfCRA could consequently introduce greater competition into Africa’s credit-rating market while giving governments, banks and corporations another benchmark against which international assessments can be measured.

But the agency also faces a significant credibility test from the outset.

An Africa-owned rating agency will only influence global borrowing costs if investors regard its methodologies as transparent, politically independent and technically rigorous. Any perception that ratings are influenced by governments or designed to produce more favourable assessments could undermine the very credibility the institution is intended to build.

That explains the significance of Tinubu’s emphasis on independence and rigour.

The broader objective is not simply to create an African alternative to Fitch, Moody’s and S&P Global. It is to establish a ratings institution capable of changing how global capital understands and prices African risk.

For countries facing high debt-service costs and constrained access to affordable financing, that distinction could have substantial economic consequences.

The success of AfCRA will therefore be measured not by its launch alone, but by whether global investors accept its assessments as credible enough to influence investment decisions and, ultimately, whether a more accurate perception of African risk can translate into a lower cost of capital for the continent.