Simon Ateba is Chief White House Correspondent for Today News Africa. Simon covers President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, the U.S. government, the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other financial and international institutions in Washington D.C. and New York City.
The Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Kristalina Georgieva on Wednesday discussed the state of the global economy at the opening of the World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings in Washington DC, asserting that the world is going through ‘a consequential moment’ as it faces “a crisis upon a crisis, a war on top of a pandemic.” She said “it is like being hit by another storm before we have recovered from the last one.”
“What is the result? A massive setback for the global economy,” she said, before announcing that the IMF on Tuesday reduced its global growth forecast to 3.6 percent for both this year and 2023. The downgrades apply to 143 countries, she said, adding that, “This is caused largely by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the shockwaves it has sent around the world.”
For Africa, things are even worse. She said, while Africa was still trying to recover from COVID-19 economic turmoil, it was again “hit by the consequences of the War in Ukraine.”
“These consequences are quite severe. Growth projections revised down for many countries. Out of 54 countries in the African Continent—let me take the Continent as a unit—we know 12 are oil exporters. The rest are all importers. All hit by high energy prices. But the most troubling impact is of high food prices and food insecurity,” she said. “To put it very simply, a war in Europe, in Ukraine, translates into hunger in Africa.”
