The writer is CEO of Standard Bank Group and chair of the Business 20 Finance & Infrastructure Task Force
The next G20 summit, beginning later this month in Johannesburg, has pledged to address socio-economic inequality and galvanise growth in the global south. Reducing the cost of capital to a level that more accurately reflects real risks in the developing world would make an important contribution to both goals.
Almost all nations in the global south face endemic under-investment in infrastructure — in part the product of the disproportionately high cost of capital. In Africa alone, that under-investment may reach $100bn annually, with nations paying as much as 500 per cent more for capital market loans than for financing from Multilateral Development Banks. Last year, more money flowed out of developing countries for debt service than came in from new financing and development assistance.