Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), spoke to DW during the Hamburg Sustainability Conference. The IMF chief said it was high time that Africa got its seat at the global financial and lending institution.

DW: Many African nations are facing unsustainable levels of debt, exacerbated by borrowing for infrastructure and the pandemic. How is the IMF addressing Africa's growing debt crisis?

Kristalina Georgieva: We work very closely with African countries in three ways. The first one is to be a source of liquidity and reserves for them. We have provided special drawing rights allocation, which does not add to that. It adds to reserves and liquidity and we also provided financing on exceptionally high scale during the [COVID-19] pandemic to help countries deal with pressing needs — 16 times higher lending than in normal times.

Second, we work with countries to identify when debt is not sustainable and promote the restructuring through the common framework as well as in the discussions of the Global Sovereign Roundtable (GSDR). So far, we have........

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