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Several African countries reeling under the weight of economic and political problems are banking on rescue interventions from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which are now holding their annual spring meets in Washington DC.
Ghana is in debt distress; public debt is unsustainable and the government has embarked on a comprehensive debt restructuring plan, a significant fiscal consolidation programme, and the implementation of reforms to foster economic stability and resilience.
Stabilisation efforts are being supported by the IMF’s Extended Credit Facility programme to about US$3 billion.
According to the World Bank, the crisis has taken a heavy toll on the pace of economic growth in the country which decelerated to an estimated 2,9 percent in 2023 and is projected to remain weak in 2024.“Returning growth to its potential rate of five percent will require macroeconomic stability,” the World Bank says.
In South Sudan, President Salva Kiir is facing a tough battle reversing an economic downturn that has pushed more than eight million people into poverty as oil production, the nation’s chief revenue earner, drops on depleted wells and military conflict in neighbouring Sudan.
Starved of donor funding for lack of political will to implement the 2018 peace agreement, Juba is trying to squeeze resources from the already overburdened oil sector. Four consecutive years of intense flooding and the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have aggravated an already difficult economic and humanitarian situation in the world’s newest nation grappling with a civil war that erupted in 2013 claiming the lives of two million people and forcing about a quarter of the population to flee to neighbouring countries. -The East African
Online Reporter