The Ibrahim Governance Weekend (IGW) is an event that is held annually by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, with this year’s event held in Marrakech. Under the theme “Financing The Africa We Want,” the participants included the Now Generation Network members, civil society representatives, current and former African leaders, professors, among others, who are contributing to the continent’s governance landscape in their various capacities. As the 2024-2026 Mo Ibrahim Scholar at the University of Birmingham, I had the privilege of attending.

From intense debate among the “Now Generation Network” members to policy and expert discussions, the IGW was action-packed and, for me, delivered as hoped. While ongoing geopolitical realignment lent renewed urgency to our discussions, the IGW’s call for financial sovereignty was not new. It stands on the shoulders of Pan-African giants: leaders like Thomas Sankara, Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba and Muammar Gaddafi who championed self-sufficiency and independence from external influences; scholars like Walter Rodney who told us how we were being underdeveloped; theorists like Samir Amin who advocated for “delinking,” a process he terms as strategic disengagement from the exogenously prescribed exploitative systems; and economists like Dambisa Moyo who warned us that “aid is dead.”

Yet, decades after those clarion calls, Africa’s economic sovereignty remains a distant goal, constrained by weak institutions, heavy reliance on external funding, and limited industrial output. The total estimated external debt burden stands at over USD 1.1 trillion, a sum that has nearly doubled in the last decade. Compared to other regions, Africa is not the most indebted. However, this is not something to make us feel better as the continent worryingly holds the highest Debt-to-GDP ratio, a trend that indicates its economic struggles. Compounding this, Africa loses an estimated USD 90 billion annually through illicit financial flows.

To fund itself, the continent finds it difficult to look inward. While there has been progress in some African countries, most countries are still faced with tax-related inefficiencies, which include generous tax exemptions for corporations, weak tax collection mechanisms, and inconsistent policies. As a result, Africa has the lowest tax-to-GDP ratio globally, leaving public projects and services underfunded and dependency on external funding intact.

These challenges notwithstanding, my key takeaway from the 2025 IGW is that our primary focus should no longer be in the diagnosis of these problems, but in understanding how they persist and why they stubbornly remain unresolved.

True to its theme, the discussions at the 2025 IGW centred on financing means, particularly tax reforms, domestic resource mobilisation, and trade integration. More crucially, the discussions highlighted Africa’s untapped potential to fund its own development. According to Mo Ibrahim Foundation’s own data on “Financing The Africa We Want,” an estimated USD 220 billion in pension funds and USD 130 billion in sovereign wealth funds remain underutilised. This is alongside vast mineral deposits, 60% of global solar potential, and 65% of the world’s uncultivated arable land.

While all of our discussions on financing were important, it was Dr. Mo Ibrahim’s opening address that moved me most. He stressed that “the first thing we need on this continent is peace and security. Without peace and security, we cannot really move forward. We need to find a way.” A peaceful and secure Africa will create the stable and predictable environment essential for domestic private sector growth and effective mobilisation of domestic resources. This includes boosting investor confidence, supporting infrastructure development, and enabling tax reforms that respond to the needs of the moment.

Professor Kingsley Moghalu, President of the African School of Governance, makes a similar argument: that Africa must first confront its governance crisis to develop itself. In my view, this governance crisis underlines every aspect of development, and the most foundational governance challenge is the erosion of state control over national security.

Across much of the continent, the state’s monopoly on legitimate violence, a core sovereign mandate, is highly contested. For example, in my home country, South Sudan, the peace agreement recognises two Commanders-in-Chief: one under President Salva Kiir (South Sudan People’s Defence Force) and another under First Vice President Riek Machar (Sudan’s People Liberation Army in Opposition). Similar power struggles are found in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Libya. Meanwhile, the Jihadist movements across the Horn of Africa, the Sahel and Lake Chad continue to expand. All of this reflects the absence of a firm coercive central authority and the state’s inability to enforce law and order.

The resulting instability is not only a human tragedy but has also shown that it stifles economic activity, shatters investor confidence, and makes sustainable tax collection nearly impossible.

To move forward, African states must reform the security sector that begins with professionalising, de-ethnicising, de-sectarianising and de-politicising the police and military. This includes fair recruitment, professional training and adequate equipment. Such reforms are essential to ensure institutional autonomy and enable security forces to act impartially, effectively and perform their duties within law. Rwanda succeeded in this approach. For example, coming out of the throes of genocide, Paul Kagame prioritised security reforms. It resulted in the establishment of an effective police and military that restored order, protected the territorial integrity and laid the foundation for broader development.

However, most of the troubled African states struggle to emulate Rwanda’s success either due to limited capacity or lack of political will. In these cases, it is incumbent on the regional institutions such as the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), or more broadly, the African Union to intervene and assist the individual countries in reforming their national security sectors. They can do this first by providing technical assistance for reform design and implementation, including capacity-building and monitoring mechanisms. Second, through the establishment of conditional funding based on tangible progress in the above areas. This is in line with the remarks by former African Union Commission Chair Moussa Faki, delivered alongside Dr. Ibrahim, that peace and security are central to Africa’s development agenda, and that the African Union has a vital role to play.

Once the security foundation has been established, it must be immediately followed by broader institutional measures. This should start with a well-trained and properly equipped meritocratic civil service. Subsequently, tax reforms which are effective and encourage investment and independent judiciaries that constrain elite capture. Moreover, this should include formation of robust audit functions that expose corruption. Together, these reforms promote the much-needed public trust, reduce the rampant corruption and improve government efficiency. To succeed in implementing these reforms, states must leverage optimal sequencing, or simultaneity where possible, with the rule of law, a competent bureaucracy and tax reforms as foundational pillars.

Worryingly, elites are often reluctant to institute such reforms, knowing that they threaten their control over power and resources. In such cases, bottom-up pressure becomes essential to generate top-down political will required for change. This demands a coalition of forces: organised social movements, civil society watchdogs, an engaged diaspora network and a free press.

“Financing The Africa We Want” is more than a theme – it is a call to action. It is a call on the African leaders and citizens alike to have a mindset shift from rhetoric to reality. If it does not happen, the continent risks becoming a graveyard of unimplemented resolutions. The action to shift must begin with addressing the governance crisis. Any attempt at investment or economic development without the necessary institutional prerequisites is analogous to a blind man in a dark room, chasing a black cat that isn’t there.