African Central Banks Seen Holding Rates High as Risks Mount

The split — seven holds, three hikes, one cut — matters less as a rate story than as evidence that Africa's monetary cycle is fragmenting around a shared external shock rather than a common domestic one. Energy-driven inflation and currency defence are forcing most policymakers to stay restrictive even where growth argues otherwise, and Goliger's point about an increasingly uneven cycle captures the real signal: divergence, not direction. The open question is whether that divergence widens further if the energy pressure persists.