As my flight leaves Washington and turns towards Dakar, I find myself thinking about the strange contrast that defined last week’s Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group where thousands of participants from around the world: finance ministers, central bank governors, heads of international organizations, development banks, private sector leaders, civil society, think tanks and the media converge.

The world is changing faster than the institutions built to govern it. Wars, debt, inflation, climate shocks, shrinking aid budgets and the scramble for critical minerals are colliding at the same time. For countries in the Global South, and especially for Africa, this is no longer simply a difficult moment. It is a turning point that we cannot aboard to miss.

What follows are my 7 main takeaways from a week of meetings, conversations and strategy sessions in Washington DC.

1. The old global model is under unprecedented serious pressure

The 2026 Spring Meetings took place in a world absorbed by renewed instability. The conflict in the Middle East has pushed up oil and fertilizer prices. Global growth projections were revised downward. Developing countries arrived in Washington carrying the burden of successive crises: the pandemic, inflation, debt distress, food insecurity, climate disasters, and now a new energy shock. The message from many countries of the Global Majority was clear: “we are exhausted by living through one global crisis after another, while the international financial system continues to respond too slowly and too cautiously”.

For Africa, the numbers are particularly alarming. The continent is expected to grow by around 4.3 percent this year, faster than many other regions. But ordinary citizens don’t feel it that way in their everyday life. More than twenty African countries remain in or near debt distress. Public debt across the continent exceeds $1.1 trillion. Debt servicing is absorbing an ever-larger share of public revenues, while rising fuel and fertilizer prices are placing new pressure on already stretched budgets. So, the current system is not delivering for people!

2. Africa can no longer come to these meetings simply to ask for help

Perhaps the most important shift I have been observing was psychological: For too long, African delegations have come to the IMF and World Bank meetings primarily to seek support, plead for relief, or react to agendas shaped elsewhere. That mood is changing.

Across the meetings and interactions, I sensed a growing determination among African leaders, diplomats, civil society actors and thinkers that the continent must come to these gathering with a strategy of its own. The continent cannot continue to define itself only through its vulnerabilities, debt, poverty, conflict or climate shocks. Africa must increasingly define itself through its assets, its leverage and its vision, but most importantly start making concrete steps to govern domestic resources differently and to form synergy to act in solidarity because Africa has leverage. The continent sits at the center of the new global economy: critical minerals, energy transition, food systems, strategic shipping routes and the world’s youngest population. Africa must prepare to negotiate from a position of strength.

3. Critical minerals: an Opportunity and a Great Test for Africa

Much of my own week in Washington was spent contributing to convene and shape conversations around critical minerals.

Together with colleagues from the Open Society Foundations and partners at the ONE Campaign we hosted a high-level strategic dialogue that brought together more than forty participants: African ambassadors, government officials, representatives of the African Union, private sector actors, think tanks and civil society. The central reality is unavoidable: the global economy is being reorganized around batteries, semiconductors, electric vehicles, renewable energy and digital technologies. All of these depend on minerals that Africa possesses in abundance.

Africa holds roughly 30 percent of the world’s mineral reserves, including large shares of cobalt, graphite, manganese, platinum and rare earths but the still export raw materials and import finished products. We continue to bear the environmental and social costs of extraction while others capture jobs, technology and wealth. My strongest takeaway is this: Africa must stop negotiating country by country. No individual state, however rich in minerals, can negotiate effectively against major powers and multinational corporations acting in a coordinated way. Africa needs a common continental position, anchored in the African Union’s Green Minerals Strategy and the still highly relevant African Mining Vision.

That should mean:

• no export of raw minerals without a pathway toward local processing and value addition.
• stronger regional cooperation around mineral corridors, infrastructure and industrial zones.
• common tax, royalty and local content standards.
• transparency and accountability in contracts.
• and a firm insistence that the green transition must not become another chapter in Africa’s long history of extraction without development.

4. Debt and critical minerals are two sides of the same story

One of the strongest themes that emerged during the week was that critical minerals are not simply a mining issue. They are directly linked to debt, industrial policy, jobs, energy access and Africa’s place in global governance. A country that is desperate for foreign exchange because of debt has less power to negotiate a fair mineral contract. A government forced to spend a large share of its revenues servicing debt has less capacity to invest in roads, electricity, education, skills and processing industries. This is why debt reform and critical mineral diplomacy must be discussed together.

With a public debt now exceeding $1.1 trillion and an  annual external debt service approaching $90 billion, the continent receives only a small share of global climate finance, and more than half of that arrives in the form of more debt. Africa cannot industrialize, process its minerals, or compete in the global economy if it remains trapped in a cycle of debt and extraction. The fight for mineral sovereignty is therefore inseparable from the fight for debt justice.

5. The African Union has a bigger role to play than ever before

One of the most important conversations of the week was a strategic meeting we held with the Commissioner of the African Union responsible for Economic Development, Trade, Industry and Minerals. The discussion confirmed something that is becoming increasingly obvious: Africa can no longer rely only on individual governments to represent the continent’s interests in global economic discussions. We need stronger continental diplomacy. This is particularly important now that the African Union has a permanent seat in the G20. That is a historic achievement. But being in the room is not the same as shaping the outcome. It is time to turn presence into power.

6. Charity Starts from Home: Africa must take responsibility for its own development

It is easy, and often justified, to focus on what is wrong with the international system. African countries borrow at far higher interest rates than countries elsewhere. Climate finance is insufficient. Global institutions remain unequal. International rules continue to favor those who already hold power. But one of my strongest convictions coming out of Washington is that Africa must also be honest about its own responsibilities. No outside actor, whether the IMF, the World Bank, China, Europe, the Gulf states or the United States, will build Africa for Africans.

African governments must improve transparency and accountability, especially on debt and public finance. They must tackle corruption and illicit financial flows. They must invest more seriously in regional integration through the African Continental Free Trade Area. They must strengthen their capacity to negotiate contracts, design industrial policies and implement long-term strategies. Above all, we should stop behaving as if development can be outsourced. Development will come only if African countries make deliberate choices: to cooperate rather than compete against one another; to process and manufacture rather than merely extract; to invest in institutions, skills and technology; and to speak with greater unity in international forums.

7. Moving Forward…

As I leave Washington, tired but hopeful, I carry with me the memory of many conversations: in formal meetings, in the corridors, over hurried coffees and in late-night strategy sessions with colleagues and friends. Africa’s future will not be secured simply by attracting more aid or more loans. It will depend on changing the terms of engagement with the rest of the world. We must move from being a source of raw materials to becoming a center of production.

The continent must build refineries, battery industries, transport corridors, digital infrastructure, universities and technical institutes. It must create a new generation of negotiators, engineers, economists and public servants capable of shaping the future rather than merely reacting to it.

That will not happen overnight, but it can happen if we start implementing all those beautiful, well-thought-out policies and frameworks we have already adopted.

Looking ahead to the next chapters, from the G20 process to the next African Union Ministerial debates, from critical minerals diplomacy to the AfDB Annual Meetings later this year, I am convinced that Africa now faces a more demanding test than simple resilience.

The years ahead will require the continent to preserve macroeconomic credibility, maintain social legitimacy and build states and institutions capable not only of making promises, but of delivering results. Countries that succeed will not simply weather the turbulence of this new era; they will emerge stronger, more sovereign and more influential within it. Those that fail risk remaining trapped in the familiar cycle of crisis, adjustment and missed opportunity.

That, perhaps, is the deepest lesson of the 2026 Spring Meetings.

Prosperity in the years ahead will depend less on rhetoric and more on something far more difficult: a more serious state, a more disciplined policy framework, stronger regional cooperation and a much greater capacity to turn strategy into outcomes. In the end, that combination will matter far more than any slogan.