LONDON - Africa's hope of reaching sustainable development goals by 2030 are "all but dead" amid an annual funding shortfall of around $1.3 trillion, according to a report by Sudanese-British billionaire businessman Mo Ibrahim's foundation.

The study released on Wednesday highlights the need for radical changes in financing as well as to rethink the way the continent funds itself and how African leaders can band together to represent the continent's needs to other global leaders.

"Africa has no voice in the global arena," Ibrahim told Reuters in an interview in London. "What we are saying is that 54 voices amount only to noise. They need to have one voice that people can hear."

The 54 nations in the continent are struggling to meet United Nations' sustainable development goals with estimates of the funding deficit between 2023-2030 ranging between $1.6 trillion to $10.4 trillion, some well above United Nations Economic Commission for Africa's 2020 estimate of $1.3 trillion.

Africa has made progress on just two of the 17 United Nations' sustainable development goals - "responsible consumption and production" "climate action". The worst-performing goals are those around eliminating poverty and hunger, and boosting health and well-being.

Ibrahim said there is an urgent need for a slew of changes to the way Africa obtains its financing - from overhauling the credit rating assessments to leveraging local financing to demanding better lending terms and more concessional finance.

Much of the finance coming to Africa is "near colonial in character," the report said, and called the credit risk agencies "the new Scrooges of the system" that deter the investment flow and inhibit debt relief "by threatening sovereign downgrades."

"Many of these financing needs...could be met locally," Ibrahim said. "We need to be smart enough in dealing with our resources. We are rich people who don't know we're rich."

Africa's public debt has nearly tripled since 2009 to $655 billion, pushing Zambia, Ghana, Ethiopia and Chad to default in the past five years, while other countries are in debt distress. Kenya managed to tap markets again this year, but at a punishing rate just above 10%.

Restructurings also need to be faster; the report called for an overhaul to the Common Framework debt treatment architecture for poor nations. Zambia's debt treatment under the programme took nearly four years, and the report called for "debt pause clauses" to give struggling countries breathing room.

But Ibrahim said it was also key for African countries to develop their local capital markets, expand tax collection, tackle illicit financial flows out of the continent and leverage diaspora bonds and remittances.

"We can't just ask people for money," Ibrahim said. "We have resources. We need to use our resources in a better way."

(Reporting By Libby George; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)