(HERALD) Africa dominates meeting
Africa dominates meetingThe Nation.
Nairobi. Africa was once again the main focus in a meeting of the world’s Finance Ministers and Central Bank governors organised by the World Bank. In its annual spring meeting held last week, the leaders discussed ways to assist African countries in addressing poverty levels, especially in the light of soaring food and oil prices.
Crude oil is currently selling at high of US$110 per barrel driven by high demand in Asia. Demand for cereals to make bio-fuel has contributed to a global increase in food prices, triggering off protest in many Third World countries.
Last week, Egypt suffered two days of riots over doubling of food prices in a year while riots linked to inflation left 40 dead in Cameroon in February.
Niger, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Cote d’Ivoire, Morocco, and Mozambique have also had such protests. Outside Africa, Haiti, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Boli-via, have reported similar skirmishes.
The Food and Agricul-ture Organisation put the number of countries experiencing food crises at 36.
Locally the country's inflation rate has hit an all time high at 22 per cent with the food related rate hitting over 28 per cent.
As a way to ease the pressure on the continent, the World Bank used the meeting to launch a new initiative dubbed Extrac-tive Industries Transpar-ency Initiative Plus Plus (EITI++).
It seeks to turn the rocketing prices into a blessing for Africa by using the increased revenue from natural resources to re-duce levels of poverty. It will be coordinated by Africa region banks among them the African Deve- lop-ment Bank. — The Nation.
Labels: World Bank
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