Coface

03 May 2024:

➦ CEE Insolvency Study 2024

• In 2023 company insolvencies in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region continued their growth trend that was initiated back in 2020. While businesses experienced reduced adverse effects from the Covid-19 pandemic in both 2020 and 2021 thanks to wide-scale support measures, next few years brought an even more challenging environment after governments phased out most of this support. As a reminder, the support mentioned included moratoria on insolvency applications as well as various measures to cushion the pandemic impact on the liquidity situation of companies to save them from bankruptcies.

➦ The proliferation of coups d’État in Africa: towards a new, more unstable era?

• In July and August 2023, coups d’État occurred in Niger and Gabon respectively, bringing this type of event back into the spotlight. They fit into a trend of government overthrows that has been on the rise since 2019 in Central and West Africa, particularly in the Sahel. Sudan (2019 and 2021), Mali (2020 and 2021), Guinea (2021) and Burkina Faso (2022, with two coups d’État) have experienced these political upheavals. When looking at the evolution of coups d’État worldwide from the 1950s to the present day, we observe a greater concentration of coups in Africa since the early 2000s, a trend that has been increasingly evident over the last five years.