Mauritius to Host Headquarters of Africa’s new Credit Ratings Agency, Challenging Western Dominance
Mauritius will host the headquarters of the Africa Credit Rating Agency (AfCRA), a new continent-wide initiative designed to provide alternative assessments of repayment risk. The agency now plans to begin operations in the second quarter of 2026.
“AfCRA will be a fully African-owned, private-sector entity,” said Marie-Antoinette Rose-Quatre, chief executive of the African Peer Review Mechanism. “It will operate independently.”
AfCRA had originally targeted a launch by the end of last month. Rose-Quatre acknowledged the delay and said the agency expects to issue its first rating by June 2026, Bloomberg reported.
She added that while Mauritius has been selected as AfCRA’s primary jurisdiction, other locations will be assessed for the agency’s regional subsidiaries.
The African Union (AU) established the Africa Credit Rating Agency (AfCRA) to provide a home-grown alternative to the dominant international rating firms.
Credit ratings remain a powerful tool for investors when allocating capital, yet Africa’s market is still largely shaped by the “big three” agencies, Moody’s, S&P and Fitch, which together control about 95% of the global ratings business.
African leaders and the AU have long argued that these global ratings often fail to reflect the true risk of lending to African nations. Critics say the agencies are quick to downgrade African countries but slow to issue upgrades, reinforcing negative perceptions and raising borrowing costs.
Ghana and Zambia, both of which defaulted on their loans in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, have been especially critical of such downgrades.
AfCRA will initially focus on rating local-currency debt to help develop domestic capital markets and reduce foreign-exchange risk.
“Our continent’s health systems cannot be resilient if our financial systems are fragile,” Rose-Quatre said at the conference, which is discussing ways to bridge Africa’s health-financing gap. Achieving that, she added, “requires financial justice.”
