The global economy has slowed and become less supportive of developing countries. African countries may be forced to resort to international capital markets to fill the gap in their development financing needs.

It is crunch time for South Africa to begin delivering on its ambitious G20 development finance agenda. The third of the four meetings this year of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors takes place on 17 and 18 July. A communiqué is expected to be issued, focusing on the development finance issues that South Africa prioritised at the beginning of its G20 presidency.

The agenda includes politically and economically complicated topics such as sovereign debt and the cost of capital and climate finance, which are issues that are high on the global policy agenda. At the recent African Union Conference on Debt held in Togo in May, African leaders, among other matters, called for the reform of the G20 common framework and for a "new debt doctrine".

The Compromiso de Sevilla, the outcome document from the recently concluded UN-sponsored Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4), also acknowledged the need for a more development-oriented debt architecture.

Unfortunately, the international economic environment in which South...