The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director, Kristalina Georgieva has said a “prosperous world economy in the 21st century requires a prosperous Africa.”
In her curtain raiser speech in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, ahead of the upcoming IMF 2023 Annual Meetings in Marrakech, Morocco, she said: “Africa has abundant resources, and boundless creativity and energy. And it is home to the world’s youngest and fastest-growing population.”
The IMF boss added that advanced economies are rapidly ageing, but they have abundant capital.
Therefore, the key will be to better connect that capital to Africa’s abundant human resources—to inject more dynamism into the current anemic global growth outlook.
She was quick to say that Africa also makes the strongest case for building economic resilience. The COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s war in Ukraine, climate disasters, the cost-of-living crisis, political instability: these are the many faces of a shock-prone world.
“Their impact is most fully on display in Africa, as is the overwhelming necessity to better prepare ourselves for that world.”
According to the IMF, this year the US is the only major economy where output has returned to its pre-pandemic path. The euro area is still below trend. China, other emerging and developing economies and Africa are further behind.
“And a prosperous Africa requires maintaining the most important bridge of all, the bridge that connects all countries—that of international cooperation,” Kristalina Georgieva stated.
The IFM’s 2023 Annual Meetings will be held in Marrakech, Morocco, next week, which will bring together finance ministers and central bank governors from 190 countries.
This will mark an important anniversary: half a century since the Meetings were last held in Africa—in Nairobi in 1973.
