African Union to launch continent’s first credit rating agency

The African Union is set to launch the African Credit Rating Agency (AfCRA) on Wednesday in Port Louis, Mauritius, where the body is headquartered.

The agency is expected to issue context-driven credit opinions on sovereign and corporate entities, and the AU argues that global ratings have often failed to reflect the economic realities of African countries.

The AU describes AfCRA as an assertion of African agency, financial sovereignty and institutional confidence. The launch was first planned for September 2025 but was postponed by a year.

The move responds to a long-running complaint by African leaders. They have said the “big three” Western agencies, Fitch, Moody’s and S&P Global, do not fairly assess the risk of lending to African countries and are quick to downgrade during crises such as conflicts and pandemics, a charge the agencies reject, saying their ratings follow the same formula worldwide.

President Bola Tinubu backed the idea earlier this year in the Financial Times, calling the gap between perceived and actual risk an “Africa premium” that raises borrowing costs across the continent.

Ghana and Zambia are among countries that have argued that rating downgrades worsened their debt challenges.

To protect its credibility, AfCRA will not be owned by African governments and is expected to focus mainly on ratings of local-currency debt.

It is also expected to widen coverage to African companies, municipalities and local-currency markets that remain largely unrated across much of the continent.

Analysts say the real test will be winning investor trust: in the near term, AfCRA is not expected to displace the big three, and its credibility will have to be earned rating by rating.