National Wire About Nigerians, Nigerian Business and Other Stories
**Says 17 African Countries At High Risk Of Debt Distress
Tayo Olanipekun, Washington DC
By 2030, nearly nine in 10 extremely poor people will be Africans, and half of the world’s poor will be living in fragile and conflict-affected settings, the World Bank has said.
Speaking on Thursday in Washington DC during the opening press briefing at the World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings, World Bank Group President, David Malpass, said this calls for urgent action by countries themselves, and by the global community.
The new World Bank President regretted that while extreme poverty has dropped to 700 million globally, the number of people living in extreme poverty is on the rise in Sub-Saharan Africa, a fact he said is “troubling and jeopardizes the World Bank’s primary goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030.”
The Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Christine Lagarde, however, said on Moday, in the Fund’s global outlook, that there is no recession in the immediate future, stressing though that the world must guard against its occurrence.
This is as Malpass also noted that in addition to the grim prediction by the bank, 17 African countries are already at high risk of debt distress, and that “number is just growing as the new contracts come in and aren’t sufficiently transparent.”
He said debt is something that helps economies grow, but if it’s not done in a transparent way, “with good outcome from the build-up of debt, then you end up having it be a drag on economies.”
On current trends, per capita income growth in Sub-Saharan Africa, as a whole, is now projected to stay below 1 percent until at least 2021, which elevates the risk of a further concentration of extreme poverty on the continent. Growth in median income will also be weak, according to the World Bank.
Global growth, it said, also lost momentum throughout 2018, falling 2.7 per cent in the fourth quarter, down from 3.3 percent in the Q1, based on World Bank calculations.
