Despite misgivings about certain countries, Africa is still in a fundamentally different place than it was 20 or 30 years ago when the old debts were taken on, thanks to robust growth and better public sector management, said Todd Moss, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Global Development.
Borrowing from private creditors also puts a higher burden on leaders to be responsible, Moss said, "whereas borrowing from the World Bank, there's clearly a dynamic of lend and forgive."