ADB calls on G20 for help

GENEVA – The head of the African Development Bank appealed Friday to leading industrialised nations to include Africa in their plans to stem the global economic downturn.

The continent has been hard hit by the world’s financial crisis as demand for its natural resources and products dries up, said Donald Kaberuka, president of the African Development Bank.
‘Mines are closing. Factories are closing. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to access the capital markets,’ he said.
‘We fear that the achievements which the continent of Africa has made over the last 10 years will be wiped off,’ Kaberuka told reporters in Geneva where he attended a conference on countries stricken by war and poverty.
African economies have grown between seven per cent and 7,5 per cent over the last ten years, he said. But with the global financial crisis pushing down export revenues, investment and the income from those working abroad, the continent’s real GDP will not grow more than 3,5 per cent this year, he said.
‘There will be a massive increase in poverty,’ because the African population is increasing rapidly, Kaberuka added.
Industrialised nations have yet to view the crisis in broader terms, he said.
‘It is being viewed as a crisis of regulation, transparency, executive payments, derivatives, hedge funds, tax havens and all this. Those things are important to be fixed,’ he said. ‘But for us in low-income countries the crisis is reaching us and is hitting very hard.’
‘We would be concerned if in the countries of the G20 process the crisis is looked at in these narrow terms,’ he said, referring to the Group of 20 leading world economies.
He called on the G20 to include development matters and make available more funding when they meet on April 2 in London to discuss a strategy to tackle the global economic crisis.
Africa needs US$25 billion this year to safeguard economic achievements over the last decade, he said.
In rich nations, Kaberuka said, ‘jobs and homes are being lost. It is very difficult. But in the poorest countries … it’s about lives being lost, children not being able to go to school (and) children not being able to access medical treatment.’
-Nampa-AP