In this commentary published in The Conversation, Léonce Ndikumana writes, "One of the challenges facing African countries is that the global environment is rather unfriendly. This hampers their efforts to gainfully tap into global markets.

Additionally, African economies are hindered by them still depending heavily on external assistance. Domestic revenue mobilisation is substantially below potential and progress in this area is very slow.

How to handle these challenges has typically focused on what African countries should do to improve their positions, and what their development partners or donors should do to improve the continent’s economic fate.

Much less attention has been given to the role of global governance. This is important because features of the global governance architecture are holding back efforts at the national, bilateral and multilateral levels, undermining national policy and international co-operation."