African countries should demand loans are made in local currencies, writes Vera Songwe in an op-ed in the Financial Times. Ms. Songwe, who is UN under-secretary-general and executive secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa sees this as necessary to lower exchange rate risks and move towards more prudent debt management. At the same time, international financial institutions should come up with ways of hedging their exchange risk as they lend in local currency.
Please find the article here in PDF, or go to the FT online version here.