The International Monetary Fund’s executive board completed its first review under the Extended Credit Facility for Ethiopia, which will disburse about $340.7 million to the East African country, Bloomberg News reported. The funds are part of a broader $3.4 billion four-year financing package approved in July. Completion of the review brings total disbursements under the arrangement to about $1.363 billion, the IMF said late on Friday. “Ethiopian authorities have shown strong commitment to their home-grown economic reform program,” according to the IMF’s statement.

Zimbabwe sought to assure citizens that its gold-backed currency would not suffer another steep devaluation and steps were being taken to assure its defence, Bloomberg News reported. “It was a once-off,” Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor John Mushayavanhu told the state-owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation in an interview posted on X. “We expect things to stabilize going forward and should start to see prices fall.” The ZiG — short for Zimbabwe Gold – was devalued by 43% on Sept. 27 to 24.4 per dollar after a wide gap emerged between the official and unofficial exchange rate.

Zimbabwe’s government has hired financial and legal advisers to help it navigate potential talks with international creditors over the $21 billion it owes, Bloomberg News reported. Paris-based boutique firm GSA & Co. SAS, founded by a former Rothschild & Co. banker, and law firm Kepler Karst, which specializes in debt restructuring and insolvency, signed engagement letters to provide Zimbabwe with advice on debt management. The southern African country has been locked out of international debt markets since 1999 after a default, and its interest payments have ballooned.

The government has tabled, before Parliament, a draft law on simplified insolvency for micro and small enterprises (MSEs), which is aimed at supporting investors faced with financial distress, The New Times reported. The new law, once enacted, could mean a difference for small businesses in Rwanda that often struggle with financial difficulties with limited options to recover from these difficulties.

Ghana is close to receiving another $360 million disbursement from the International Monetary Fund as it reached a staff-level agreement with the Washington-based lender on the third review of an extended credit facility program, Bloomberg News reported. The final decision will be taken by the IMF Executive Board, the fund said in a statement on Friday. This would bring to $1.92 billion in total disbursements the West African nation has received since agreeing to a $3 billion bailout package with the fund in May 2023.

Ghana received “overwhelming” participation and support from its international bondholders to restructure $13 billion of eurobonds, a key step marking the conclusion of the West African nation’s debt rework, Bloomberg News reported. Eligible holders representing 98.6% of outstanding bonds agreed to a debt exchange following a consent solicitation, paving the way for the government to issue new bonds to investors to replace existing ones, Minister of Finance Mohammed Amin Adam said in the capital, Accra on Thursday. Investors will swap their securities for new notes on or around Oct.

Investors holding Ethiopia’s defaulted dollar bonds have rejected the debt-restructuring terms proposed by the government for the $1 billion issue, Bloomberg News reported. An ad hoc committee representing holders of the sovereign notes maturing Dec. 2024 said Ethiopia’s proposal of an 18% haircut on the bond’s principal is “wholly inconsistent” with the nation’s economic fundamentals. “The committee does not consider the illustrative terms to be a reasonable starting point for negotiation,” it said in a statement Thursday.

Mozambique remained the only African central bank this year to reduce borrowing costs at each of its rate-setting meetings and signaled more easing to come, Bloomberg News reported. The Banco de Moçambique on Monday lowered its benchmark rate, known by its Portuguese acronym Mimo, to 13.5% from 14.25%, Governor Rogerio Zandamela said, matching the scale of its four prior cuts in 2024. “The assessment of risks and uncertainties associated with inflation projections remains favorable,” Zandamela said.

South Africa’s central bank cut interest rates for the first time in four years and signaled a more optimistic outlook for inflation, Bloomberg News reported. The monetary policy committee reduced its benchmark rate by 25 basis points to 8%, Governor Lesetja Kganyago told reporters at a briefing north of Johannesburg on Thursday. That matched the median estimate of 24 economists in a Bloomberg survey. Only one analyst had penciled in a 50 basis-point cut.

Zimbabwe’s creditors may be willing to consider a debt-for-climate swap with the nation as part of a restructure of its $21 billion in arrears, Bloomberg News reported. Interactions with the nation’s development partners indicate it is “an option that they are willing to consider,” Raul Fernandez, a United Nations Development Program project manager for climate development frameworks, said at a summit Monday hosted by the country’s Treasury in the resort city of Victoria Falls. “They need to see some action from the government, this commitment to structural reforms,” he said.