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Pierre A. from Abidjan: What do you think of the legal establishment facilitated by the ADB to aid the African countries, victims of the vulture funds?

It is clear that the vulture funds are a wound whose treatment requires the goodwill of all development partners, including donors and the African governments. Failure to sustainability of African debt has prepared their ground, destroying all the benefits that some might reasonably expect from the debt cancellation or, in other words, inputs of all kinds. The African Legal Support Facility, established by the African Development Bank to assist countries in turmoil, is a commendable initiative. But it is limited in its objectives: to finance assistance in the event of renegotiation or representation in court cases.

If there was agreement on the gravity of the moment, perhaps it should then complement this with a rescue plan for, if not to remove the prey from the claws of predators, at least for the future to divert the most vulnerable of them from the dangerous roads. The steps to follow might be:

• Establish an audit of debt with an outlook for the short term (1-2 years)
• Designing a fixation mechanism to prevent new debt, always accompanied by a restructuring procedure
• Create an emergency mutual fund to meet liquidity problems and solvency
• Create a uniform institutional framework to reduce the use of vulture funds and manage the development policies.