China’s commitments loom large in the successful implementation of the G20’s COVID-19 Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI), with Angola, Kenya, Zambia and other nations benefiting from relief sparked by the pandemic’s impacts. Of the 46 countries that participated in the DSSI relief, China contributed 63% of debt service suspensions, while…
Laureen is the editor of Africa Times
Zimbabwe, Ghana and Rwanda are among the 10 countries on the globe that are hardest-hit by food price inflation, with Uganda and Egypt also seeing sharp rises, according to the latest numbers from the World Bank. They join Chad, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Sudan, which are among 15 nations identified by…
Laureen is the editor of Africa Times
The World Bank has formally launched its US$93 billion in funding commitments to help low-income countries build up their economies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and other setbacks, with funds sourced in part from 52 donor nations through the IDA20 replenishment. The funding is meant to target “overlapping crises—climate…
By Ousmane Diagana On the shores of the coastal Senegalese city of Saint Louis, climate change is no longer a distant threat. It is already a current issue impacting its people. Hundreds of them have had to flee the devastating effects of rising sea levels and erosion, losing their livelihoods,…
A new World Bank report on climate migration begins, in part, in Morocco. The authors of “Groundswell” point to water challenges in the life of a village teen who thinks of moving to Rabat because the decreasing water supply is putting too much pressure on his family farm. These are…
The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to push as many as 150 million more people into extreme poverty by 2021, the World Bank says, marking the first time in 20 years that the number of those in such poverty will rise. The pandemic “compounds the forces of conflict and climate change”…
Uganda is celebrating the birth of another baby mountain gorilla, the fifth such arrival for the endangered species in the last six weeks. The latest little gorilla was born to Ruterana, an adult female in the Rushegura family group that lives in the Bwindi forest. It is her third child,…
More than 200 million migrants across the globe send remittances to their home countries, many of them on the African continent, and that means some 800 million family members depend on them. In low- and middle-income countries, that amounted to US$554 billion last year, more than either the world’s official…
Funds from the World Bank’s Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF) will start going out to eligible low-income nations as early as next week, according to an announcement from the bank on Monday. The US$195.8 million is headed to 64 of the world’s poorest countries with confirmed cases of COVID-19, including…
When Nigeria discovered its first coronavirus patient – an Italian citizen who works in the country – public health officials weren’t the only ones who responded quickly. So did a group of scientists and researchers who got to work and sequenced the genome of the COVID-19 virus found in the…
Laureen is the editor of Africa Times
The African Development Bank delivered a forceful response on Thursday, after World Bank President David Malpass suggested the AfDB was among multinational development banks that are too quick to lend and therefore adding to the debt burden in African nations. Malpass specifically mentioned AfDB loans to Nigeria and South Africa…
For many African nations, the economic challenges remain enormous. Zimbabwe, for example, saw its extreme poverty rate increase by 5 percent in 2019, leaving a third of the nation – some 5.7 million people, according to World Bank – to deal with sharp inflation and shortages, all from the most…
Laureen is the editor of Africa Times
President Patrice Talon of Benin met with United States diplomats and World Bank executives during his trip to Washington D.C., with his discussions focused on investment and the West African nation’s economic development. Talon also met with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday to discuss regional security cooperation…
Ethopia, Egypt and Sudan have made progress in the dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which will provide a much-needed 15,000 GWh per year in energy for Ethiopia but threatens Nile River water resources on which the other nations depend. The foreign affairs and water resources ministers of…
The World Bank warns that the debt level in the world’s emerging and developing economies (EMDEs), much of it on the African continent, rose to US$55 trillion in 2018. That marks an eight-year run that has seen the EMDE nations accumulate debt at the largest and fastest rate in nearly…