In the CEMAC zone, outstanding financing raised by the six member states on the regional public securities market reached 10,560.8 billion CFA francs in July 2026, according to data released by the BEAC in late August. That figure represents a 3.34 percent increase in a single month, driven by growing appetite from regional investors: the subscription rate on new issuances climbed from 72.44 percent to 76.23 percent between June and July. This momentum came with a slight rise in borrowing costs, though, as the average rate crept up from 8.29 percent to 8.53 percent over the same period.
The lineup of borrowers has shifted noticeably in recent months. Long led by Cameroon and Congo, the market is now dominated by Gabon, whose outstanding debt accounts for 31.6 percent of the total, fueled by securitization deals and an ambitious post-transition investment program. Congo follows with 29.4 percent, ahead of Cameroon in third place with roughly 19.7 percent of the regional total, equivalent to nearly 3.65 billion dollars in debt as of the end of July. Yaoundé increasingly relies on Treasury bills and bonds to cover its budgetary needs, a gradual shift toward domestic financing that mirrors a broader trend across the subregion.
In Senegal, a very different figure dominated the week’s economic news. Prime Minister Ahmadou Al Aminou Lo revealed during his general policy statement on September 8 that the state owes close to 1,956 billion CFA francs to its private suppliers and contractors. This stock of arrears, built up over several budget cycles, weighs heavily on the cash flow of many small and medium-sized businesses and strains bank balance sheets exposed to these claims. According to the prime minister, only a new formal program with the IMF will restore lender confidence and unlock the concessional financing needed for a gradual settlement. The 2026 budget law had already set aside a first tranche of 300 billion CFA francs for this purpose, though that amount covers only a fraction of the total liability, underscoring the scale of the task facing Dakar.
Mali, meanwhile, is betting on the value of local products to diversify an economy still largely oriented toward raw commodity exports. The country plans to invest 172.5 million CFA francs to industrialize production of its traditional Balembo syrup, a modest sum that nonetheless reflects a broader ambition for local processing, one that Mali’s private sector has been pushing for years amid the country’s limited industrial base.
These three trajectories, different as they are, point to a single regional reality. Between the rapid expansion of the CEMAC bond market, the weight of Senegal’s domestic debt toward its own productive sector, and Mali’s early efforts at local transformation, West and Central African states are navigating between rising financing needs and a still-emerging ambition to reduce their dependence on unprocessed commodity exports.