Can Africa itself correct the bias it says the Big Three credit rating agencies display in grading African sovereigns? The African Union (AU) and other voices on the continent believe this bias gives African countries unfairly low ratings, pushes up their borrowing costs and slows development.
So in February 2025, the AU announced the creation of its own Africa Credit Rating Agency (AfCRA), headquartered in Mauritius. “Africa is no longer content to be a passive observer in this discourse,” AU African Peer Review Mechanism Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Marie-Antoinette Rose-Quatre said last September. “We are taking ownership of our narrative and driving forward meaningful, homegrown solutions.”
Certainly, African sovereigns on average receive lower ratings from the Big Three – Standard and Poor’s (S&P), Moody’s and Fitch, all private American companies – than developed countries do.
In 2025, only Botswana, Morocco and Mauritius had investment-grade status, while South Africa, Côte d’Ivoire and Benin were rated just below investment grade. The remaining 49 were rated well below. Several African countries are not rated at all, remaining excluded from capital market access.
However, to say the Big Three have generally rated African sovereigns lower than developed countries is not necessarily proof of bias. The three companies insist they grade all states according to the same criteria and that African countries happen to score lower.
