The IMF in Africa: Going green

March 11, 2010 by admin

The IMF says it wants to help Africa handle climate change

THE global recession was slow to hit Africa. Its banks and stock exchanges were isolated enough from the wider capital markets to suffer few shocks. Foreign investment remained steady. Oil-rich countries such as Angola continued to boom. But dampened demand for African exports last year, together with the shrinking of many venture-capital funds, has now hit the continent hard after a long period of unusually perky growth. Countries south of the Sahara together grew by less than 2% in 2009. In many places income has fallen and unemployment started to rise.

So the bullishness of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF’s head, who has been touring Africa, struck some as strange. He went out of his way to praise Africa’s central banks. He even said Africa’s economies were more dynamic than most of Asia’s. The main point, he said, was that Africa was recovering from the global crisis faster than expected. ...

Permalink