30 countries with the highest and lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in Africa

Business Insider Africa presents 30 countries with the highest and lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in Africa.
The list is according to available stats obtained from Statista.
Note that measuring a country's debt-to-GDP ratio helps multilateral lenders and decision-makers to understand said country's ability to repay debts.

Investopedia defines the debt-to-GDP ratio as an important metric for comparing a country's gross national debt to its gross domestic product (GDP). It measures how much a country owes compared to everything the country produces.

As you should know, the GDP comprehensively measures the monetary value of all the products and services produced in a country within a given period.

By comparing the ratio of a country's public debt with its GDP, decision-makers and multilateral lenders can obtain reliable insight/understanding of the country's capability to repay its debts.

"By comparing what a country owes with what it produces, the debt-to-GDP ratio reliably indicates that particular country’s ability to pay back its debts. Often expressed as a percentage, this ratio can also be interpreted as the number of years needed to pay back debt if GDP is dedicated entirely to debt repayment," says Investopedia.

Discussions about the debt-to-GDP ratio of African countries are necessary right now because the public debt stock across the continent has been climbing to levels never before seen in the history of modernity.

A recent report by the World Bank showed that more than half of the low-income countries in the world, most of which are in Africa, are either currently grappling with debt distress or at risk of doing so.

Also, Standard Bank Group had, earlier in the year, red-flagged Ghana, Kenya, Ethiopia, Zambia and Angola as African countries that could soon experience serious debt risks.

Below are 30 African countries with the highest and lowest debt-to-GDP ratios. This list is courtesy of a report by Statista dated December 2021.

15 African countries with the highest debt to GDP ratio