African leaders are preparing to promote the inclusion of their natural assets in the calculation of GDP at upcoming major international summits, in order to allow an increase in the value of the GDP of their states.

Africa represents 20% of the Earth's surface and is home to a quarter of all mammal species. Indeed, the countries of the continent want to take advantage of this wealth in terms of biodiversity to value their economies on a global scale, and to be less in financial difficulty. To do this, the African Development Bank (AfDB) recently took an initiative in this sense to change the calculation of GDP, in order to include the weight of natural resources. The project was confirmed by Akinwumi Adesina, current president of the ADB, on the sidelines of a conference on the electrification of the continent held at the end of

In the latter, this new calculation method “will be on the agenda of every stage, of the G7, of the G20 (meetings)... I expect others to give that it is time to start changing the assessment of African economies”. According to the ADB, this is a way to reduce debt. According to the information, a sixth of the world's forests are located on the continent according to the UN, which allows Africa to be one of the poles for retaining carbon emissions and thus limit global warming. For the institution, this is a boon that should be taken into account when calculating GDP. To date, the other international financial institutions have not made any commitments to this initiative.

Pour rappel, la dette extérieure totale des économies de l' Afrique subsaharienne est passée de 150 milliards de dollars il y a une quinzaine d' années à environ 500 milliards de dollars, selon les chiffres de la World Bank.