The managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Ms. Kristalina Georgieva, said that African economies needed to recover in order to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic on the path to growth.
According to her, bold and immediate action is needed to rebuild and rebuild African economies.
Ms Georgieva made these observations during a virtual meeting monitored by the Ghana News Agency with African finance ministers to discuss the immediate economic response to the Covid-19 pandemic and convened by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).
“The world will lose approximately $ 9 trillion if only the rich get Covid-19 vaccines. “40 percent of that loss will be in developed economies,” she said.
The IMF director called on ministers to prepare for a focused and practical discussion during the spring meetings in 2021.
“Now is the time to show that the allocation of SDRs can be part of a comprehensive support framework, along with actions to reduce debt, debt relief and political support in countries,” he said.
During the meeting, ministers were unanimous in their call for additional liquidity, $ 500 billion in special drawing rights (SDRs), better market access, more concessions and an extension of the debt service initiative (DSSI). given the continuing nature of the pandemic.
The candidate for the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning of Ghana, Mr. Ken Ofori-Ata, said: “We all know that the Covid-19 pandemic will continue for the next 2-3 years. Why do we extend DSSI for six months instead of 24 months? “
He said the cascading effects of Covid-19 were “a terrible thing for a finance minister to witness when they don’t have the means to respond.”
Regarding market access, Egyptian Finance Minister Mohamed Maight said that “there is a strong argument for vulnerable countries to gain access to affordable markets in order to afford basic things such as PPE and food for their people.”
Equal access to COVID-19 vaccines was highlighted as an imperative for better progress.
In addition to the availability of vaccines, Songwe of the ECA said the issue of distribution and implementation also deserves serious consideration. For this reason, the countries needed additional fiscal space and less austerity.
The purpose of the meeting was “to seek IMF support to overcome the crisis by transforming existing liquidity instruments and facilitating market access to alleviate the debt burden and provide much-needed liquidity for the continent,” she added.
Minister Vera Daves from Angola stressed the importance of reforms in the country and in particular the reforms of good governance as an important component of the response and recovery plan.
Angola, she said, is determined to continue on its path to reform.
The meeting agreed on the need for concerted efforts to accelerate reforms to increase revenues, improve spending and manage debt in order to attract more private sector investment in Africa.
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