What happens when a country's credit rating becomes a ceiling on the investment opportunities within its borders? In this episode of Voices of Africa, we speak with Igor Zelezetskii, Senior Fellow at the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, about how the sovereign ceiling can inflate Africa's cost of capital by failing to distinguish between a country's credit risk and that of the individual businesses, banks and infrastructure projects operating within it. Drawing on his research into sovereign risk and credit-rating methodologies, Igor outlines a four-step framework for disaggregating risk, assessing how it is transmitted and identifying where it can be mitigated. We explore why a more granular, evidence-based approach to credit ratings could help unlock more affordable financing for African investment.
