Africa: Measuring capital flight

'The magnitude of African capital flight is staggering both in absolute monetary values and relative to GDP. For the thirty-three sub-Saharan African countries for which we have data, we find that more than $700 billion fled the continent between 1970 and 2008. If this capital was invested abroad and earned interest at the going market rates, the accumulated capital loss for these countries over the thirty-nine-year period was $944 billion. By comparison, total GDP for all of sub-Saharan Africa in 2008 stood at $997 billion.' This means, L. Ndikumana and J. Boyce, in their new book 'Africa's Odious Debts', that the rest of the world owes more to these African countries than they owe to the rest of the world. This suggests that Africa could expunge its entire stock of foreign debt if it could recover only a fraction of the wealth held by Africans in foreign financial centres around the world. The latest edition of the Africa Focus Bulletin contains extracts from the book.