Africa has reached a new milestone with the establishment of an African credit rating agency. The inaugural launch of the Africa Credit Rating Agency (AfCRA) took place on Wednesday 7 October 2026 in Balaclava, in the presence of distinguished guests, including Nestor Ntahontuye, Prime Minister of Burundi, who holds the Presidency of the African Union; Mahamoud Ali Youssouf, Chairperson of the African Union Commission; Robert Hungley, Acting President of the Republic; Dr Jyoti Jeetun, Minister of Financial Services and Economic Planning; Dhananjay Ramful, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade; and Ahunna Eziakonwa, Assistant Secretary-General and Special Adviser on Africa to the United Nations Secretary-General. Leaders of continental financial institutions, development partners and financial sector representatives also attended.
As Africa’s first credit rating agency, AfCRA aims to bring to credit assessments an in-depth understanding of the continent’s economies, markets and local contexts, while complementing the role of existing international rating agencies. A continental African Union initiative driven by the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), the agency will be headquartered in Mauritius, which was selected following a rigorous selection process involving several African Union Member States. This decision reflects the recognition of Mauritius as a credible and well-established international financial centre.
Conceived as an agency created by Africans, AfCRA is structured to operate independently. It aims to strengthen the continent’s capacity to develop and promote its own expertise in credit rating, in support of an evolving African financial architecture. Although it originates from an African Union and APRM initiative, AfCRA has a governance structure that safeguards the independence of its credit rating decisions from any political or commercial interference. The agency operates as a private entity, led by its CEO, Dr Sifiso Falala, a professional with many years of experience in credit rating.
Marie-Antoinette Rose Quatre, CEO of the APRM, stated: “AfCRA was not created to rival existing international credit rating agencies. Its objective was, and remains, to deliver rigorously independent, materially impartial, credible assessments that are firmly grounded in African realities. The fundamentals of credit assessment are sacrosanct; however, a sound methodology must understand the economies, institutions and contexts it seeks to assess. Although this vision originated within the African Union, AfCRA was deliberately designed as an entirely private initiative.”
Beyond the official ceremony, the day featured high-level discussions, bilateral meetings between Dr Jyoti Jeetun and Nestor Ntahontuye, Prime Minister of Burundi, who holds the Presidency of the African Union, and Mahamoud Ali Youssouf, Chairperson of the African Union Commission, as well as a press briefing, attended by many African media outlets who travelled for the occasion, on the scope and ambitions of this new institution. The launch capped several days of discussions in Mauritius on the future of African capital markets and the mobilisation of the resources needed for the continent’s transformation.
For Mauritius, hosting the agency’s headquarters reflects a broader commitment to making its financial ecosystem and institutional framework available to initiatives that contribute to the continent’s development and financial integration. The establishment of AfCRA thus adds a new dimension to the ties Mauritius maintains with Africa. The role of Mauritius is that of host jurisdiction and does not extend to the development of ratings, the methodologies used, or the assessments produced by the agency. This independence is precisely one of the fundamental principles on which AfCRA’s credibility rests.
In her address, Dr Jyoti Jeetun, Minister of Financial Services and Economic Planning, stressed that “The establishment of AfCRA in Mauritius marks an important step in strengthening the African financial architecture. This new institution will help enrich risk assessment through a better understanding of the realities of our economies and markets. What is at stake goes well beyond the creation of a new rating agency. By strengthening our collective capacity to better understand and assess risk, we aim to facilitate access to capital and thereby further support investment in Africa. For Mauritius, it is also about placing the expertise and credibility of our financial centre at the service of a more effective mobilisation of capital for the continent’s development.”
Dhananjay Ramful, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade, for his part emphasised the importance of AfCRA’s independence and credibility in establishing its legitimacy on the international financial stage: “International lenders systematically require borrowing countries to hold a sovereign rating from at least one of the three major international credit rating agencies (Moody’s, S&P and Fitch). However, there is growing dissatisfaction with the influence of these agencies, and with their approach and methodologies. AfCRA intends to bring an African perspective to credit risk assessment, without seeking to compete with existing agencies. Its success will rest above all on its credibility. That is why it has been designed to operate in full independence, free from any influence by African governments.”
The launch took place the day after the second annual APRM conference on credit ratings, held on 5 and 6 October 2026 under the theme “Towards Developing African Capital Markets: Rechanneling Africa’s Capital.” Discussions focused in particular on strengthening the African financial architecture, reducing borrowing costs, deepening domestic capital markets, and mobilising African capital in support of the continent’s development.
