Greater access to international capital markets has meant that many African countries now owe a significant share of their debt to private bondholders, traded in secondary debt markets around the world. Accessing sovereign debt challenges for the continent would have to take on different forms, expanding beyond the traditional definitions of debt distress to broader market-oriented measures that identify crises through movements in sovereign bond spreads. In this paper, we use duration models to identify recent debt distress and recovery episodes in Africa from a market-oriented approach. Our results indicate that favourable external conditions combined with sound domestic policy and the presence of IFI-supported programs contribute to shorter episodes of bond market crisis. Specifically, more robust reserves, and lower levels of short-term debt shortens the duration of debt crises in Africa. Thus, both good policies and good luck have played complementary roles in facilitating recovery from debt distress in Africa.