South African President Cyril Ramaphosa welcomed a report commissioned by the G20 that proposes selling part of the International Monetary Fund’s gold reserves, along with reviewing lending policies to address Africa’s mounting debt crisis.
The report, prepared by experts for the first-ever G20 summit held on the continent, shows that more than 3.4 billion people live in countries that spend more on debt servicing than on education or healthcare. It warned that governments are “effectively abandoning development” to meet their obligations to creditors, noting that public debt in developing countries exceeded $31 trillion in 2024.
The report stresses the need for the G20 to work with the IMF and the World Bank to establish a debt refinancing mechanism for poor and fragile countries. It also highlights the potential use of the Fund’s gold reserves—estimated at hundreds of millions of ounces and still valued at historical prices that do not reflect the current market value of over $4,000 per ounce—to generate liquidity without additional cost.
The authors emphasize the need for a transparent mechanism to sell this gold in order to provide financing to countries under debt pressure. According to Trevor Manuel, head of the Africa expert panel and former South African finance minister, “this solution is clear to us and does not require new spending,” though he acknowledged that implementation details still require careful study.
