This year, the six countries that share the CFA franc in Central Africa — Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, and the Central African Republic — plan to borrow a combined CFA 3.9 trillion or about $7 billion, from a market most people have never heard of: the regional government bond market run by BEAC, the shared central bank in Yaoundé. Think of it like this. Instead of just asking foreign banks and international investors for loans — the traditional way — these governments are now increasingly asking each other's banks. A bank in Cameroon might buy government bonds from Gabon. A bank in Congo might lend to Chad. The money stays inside the region, moving between six countries that share one currency and one central bank.
Who is borrowing the most
The numbers make it clear this is not an equal split. Cameroon alone plans to raise CFA 750 billion (about $1.3 billion) just in the second quarter of 2026 — more than double what Congo (CFA 380 billion, about $663 million) or Gabon (up to CFA 335.5 billion, about $585 million) are targeting in the same period. Chad is aiming for up to CFA 240 billion (about $420 million), Equatorial Guinea CFA 70 billion (about $120 million) , and the Central African Republic a much smaller CFA 21.5 billion (about $38 million).
Zoom out to the full picture of outstanding debt already sitting in this market, and three countries dominate it almost completely. According to BEAC's own data, Gabon, Cameroon, and Congo together account for nearly 80% of all government bonds currently outstanding on the regional market — roughly 30.5% for Gabon, 29.5% for Cameroon, and a comparable share for Congo. In February 2026, Cameroon even issued the region's first-ever 15-year government bond — testing whether investors are willing to lend for that long, something nobody in CEMAC had tried before.
Why they are doing this
The honest answer is that borrowing this way has become easier than the alternative. Public debt already exceeds 70% of GDP in some CEMAC countries — Congo and Gabon in particular — according to the World Bank's December 2025 CEMAC report. Government revenues are not keeping pace with what these countries need to spend. And international lenders, from bondholders in London to development banks in Washington, have become more cautious and more expensive as global interest rates stayed high. Borrowing from the regional market solves several problems at once. It is faster than negotiating an international loan. It keeps the debt in the same currency the government already uses, so there's no risk of the dollar or euro suddenly becoming more expensive to repay. And it builds up a local market that barely existed twenty years ago — the whole system was only created in December 2011.
The catch
Here is the part that should worry anyone watching this closely. The banks buying most of these government bonds are the same banks that are supposed to be lending money to local businesses, farmers, and entrepreneurs. Every CFA franc a bank puts into a safe, government-backed bond is a CFA franc it is not lending to a small business trying to expand.
The IMF has already flagged early signs of strain: in several recent bond auctions, demand from investors has been weaker than governments hoped. And it is almost entirely commercial banks buying these bonds — not pension funds, not insurance companies, not the kind of long-term investors who could absorb much larger amounts without squeezing out everyone else. Without those bigger players entering the market, six governments all borrowing more, year after year, from the same limited pool of bank money, risks leaving less and less credit available for the private businesses that are supposed to drive the region's economic growth.
What to watch
None of this means CEMAC governments are about to run out of money. What it means is that a financing tool built to reduce the region's dependence on outside lenders is, itself, starting to show the limits of how much it can carry. Cameroon, Gabon, and Congo — the three countries doing most of the borrowing — are also three of the countries we have covered facing real fiscal pressure of their own, whether through Cameroon's mounting arrears, Gabon's rapid debt growth, or Congo's debt load above 70% of GDP.
The CFA 3.9 trillion (about $7 billion) target for 2026 will likely be met — the market has absorbed rising issuance so far. The real question is what happens after that: whether more investors, beyond the same handful of regional banks, start buying into these bonds, or whether Central Africa's governments keep drawing from the same well until it runs shallow.
