Ndikumana and Boyce’s research shows that over half the money borrowed by African governments departs the continent in the same year, some of it ending up in private accounts of the same banks that provided the loans. Between 1970 and 2008, sub-Saharan Africa lost more than $700 billion to capital flight, far greater than the region’s debt of $175 billion. The human costs of these lost resources are devastating; the authors calculated that debt service payments on loans that fuelled capital flight have resulted in more than 75,000 additional infant deaths annually in the sub-Saharan region.