The Africa Credit Rating Agency (AfCRA), a privately run institution established under an African Union (AU) mandate, was due to be officially launched in Mauritius on October 7, creating a new pan-African source of credit assessments for sovereigns, companies and financial institutions.

The launch in Port Louis comes eight years after African leaders endorsed the project in 2018. The AU said the agency would provide independent assessments rooted in African data, expertise and economic conditions while complementing the major global agencies.

“AfCRA complements existing global credit rating agencies by offering a perspective rooted in African data, expertise, and realities,” the AU said in its launch statement.

AfCRA’s objectives are to:

• Provide independent, evidence‑based ratings for African sovereigns, corporates, and institutions.
• Enhance transparency and accountability in Africa’s financial markets.
• Expand market intelligence and close data asymmetries.
• Support better‑informed investment decisions.
• Strengthen Africa’s voice in global financial governance.

AfCRA is structured as a private sector-driven, self-funded institution. Governments are barred from owning shares, a safeguard intended to protect its independence from political influence, while the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), which oversaw its establishment, will not control its operations, according to the AU.

The AU has not disclosed the agency’s shareholders, Reuters reported. Its launch materials also do not specify when AfCRA will issue its first rating.

The ownership structure was still being finalised as recently as May, when the APRM was conducting due diligence on potential equity partners and reviewing proposed shareholder terms and a financing vehicle for the agency.

The agency plans to rate sovereigns, sub-sovereigns, financial institutions and private companies and may also rate non-African entities, subject to management decisions. The AU says 23 of Africa’s 55 economies currently lack ratings from the three dominant global agencies and that wider coverage would open capital markets to more African issuers.

Mauritius was selected as AfCRA’s headquarters jurisdiction in September 2025 after a competitive process among AU member states conducted by the APRM. Regional subsidiaries are planned elsewhere on the continent.

The launch follows the second Annual African Conference on Credit Ratings, held in Mauritius on October 5 and 6. The island already hosts CARE Ratings Africa, which in May 2015 became the first credit rating agency licensed by Mauritius’s Financial Services Commission.

The launch comes after repeated delays. The APRM said in February 2025 that the agency would begin work that June; the target later slipped to September 2025 and ultimately to October 2026.

The launch takes place as African governments face elevated borrowing costs and rising debt-service burdens. Africa’s annual external debt service rose to $163bn in 2024 from $61bn in 2010, according to the AU, with interest payments in most countries exceeding public spending on health or education.

“AfCRA aims to reduce such burdens by improving investor confidence and market transparency,” the AU said.

The agency is intended to improve how African sovereigns, sub-sovereigns and businesses are assessed and understood in international financial markets by supplying better data, expertise and context on African credit risk, according to the statement, which says governments stand to gain fairer borrowing terms and investors more balanced, context-specific insight into African risk.

• 2018: AU Assembly endorsed the creation of AfCRA.
• July 2023: Ministers of Finance, Monetary Affairs, Economic Planning, and Integration adopted a declaration in Nairobi supporting AfCRA.
• 2024–2025: Institutional frameworks, governance, and methodology developed under the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM).
• October 2026: AfCRA to officially launch in Port Louis, Mauritius, alongside the 2nd Annual African Conference on Credit Ratings.

The initiative also stems from longstanding claims by African governments that Moody’s Ratings, S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings do not assess African credit risk fairly and move too quickly to downgrade borrowers during crises. The three agencies reject accusations of systemic bias and say they apply common methodologies globally.

Kenyan President William Ruto told the 38th AU Summit in Addis Ababa in February 2025 that global agencies had “deliberately failed Africa”, citing a study by the APRM and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) that put the cost of biased ratings at $75bn in lost opportunities. A one-notch rating improvement would unlock $15.5bn in additional funding for the continent, he said.

The dispute sharpened this year when the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) ended its relationship with Fitch on January 23. Fitch cut the lender to sub-investment grade on January 28 and withdrew its ratings.

Evidence of such bias is contested. A 2024 Reuters investigation found no evidence of systematic bias in sovereign ratings assigned to African countries. A study by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and RWI–Leibniz Institute for Economic Research, presented at Chatham House in June, found a statistically significant downward ratings difference of roughly 0.5 to one notch for African sovereigns in its model.

At the same Chatham House discussion on June 16, Marie Diron of Moody’s Ratings said the agency’s historical default data showed African sovereigns defaulting in line with similarly rated borrowers elsewhere. Were its ratings biased against Africa, she argued, African sovereigns would default less often than others carrying the same rating.

An IMF working paper published in July 2025 estimated that sub-Saharan African sovereigns paid an average premium of 46 basis points over similarly rated borrowers when issuing Eurobonds, widening to more than 120 basis points during global shocks, but found limited evidence of systematic ratings bias once economic fundamentals and governance were taken into account.

See IntelliNews: Credit where credit is due? Africa builds new financial channels to challenge the ‘Africa premium’

Jacob Oreki, a management consultant at Kenya’s Strathmore University Foundation, told AFP that African borrowers have long paid a high risk premium but that markets would treat the agency as advocacy if it proved unwilling to downgrade an African sovereign. Investors will rely on its ratings only if “it is credible, not because it is African”, he said.

See also IntelliNews: AfDB to help African states prepare for credit ratings as continental agency launch nears