The months-long standoff between the African Export-Import Bank, or Afreximbank, and credit ratings agency Fitch has now ended in a clean break.
Last week, Afreximbank severed ties with Fitch, saying the agency’s analysis no longer reflected “a good understanding of the Bank’s Establishment Agreement, its mission and its mandate.” Soon after, on Wednesday, Fitch released its latest rating of the lender — a downgrade to junk status — citing concerns about how the bank’s loans to governments would be treated in future debt restructurings.
This capped off a dispute that has quietly exposed deeper tensions in global development finance — not only over how African institutions are assessed by international ratings agencies, but over some more fundamental questions: What exactly counts as a multilateral development bank, and what protections come with that status?