The international Monetary Fund (IMF) says Africa needs $1.2 trillion over the next three years for Africa to recover from the economic losses it incurred due to the coronavirus lockdown.
Head of the IMF, Kristalina Georgieva adds that the world “must do more to support Africa to [recover]… from this crisis”.
Africa has had fewer COVID-19 infections and deaths than most other continents. But according to the World Bank which states that 43 million or more Africans are at risk of extreme poverty as a result of the pandemic.
The economic impact is reversing the growth witnessed in recent years of strong growth in Africa, as jobs have been lost and family incomes have been reduced by 12%, Ms Georgieva said in a virtual IMF meeting.
Why?
To ease their respective economic impact, many African governments have introduced mitigation policies which have cost them about 2.5% of their GDP, she added.
The IMF has already given African countries about $26bn to reduce the impact but even with the help of private lenders and other countries’ assistance there is still a huge shortfall in funding.
“Some countries are confronting high debt burdens forcing them to choose between debt service and additional social and health spending,” the IMF chief adds.
As a means to help, she called for an extension of the moratorium by the G20 of debt repayments and wanted more funds to be available to lend.