Mr Olusegun Aganga, chairman of the World Bank board and Nigeria’s minister of finance, says the next decade could be the defining moment for some emerging and developing economies.
Declaring open the 64th plenary of the board of governors of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group over the weekend in Washington D.C., the chairman commended what he called “the flexibility and resourcefulness of developing and transition country members during the turbulence of recent years.”
According to Aganga, “It is possible that Africa’s Lions like Nigeria with 6 per cent GDP growth last year and a robust GDP growth of 7.4 per cent in the first half of this year, could rival Asia’s Tigers and the BRICs in the near future.”
On the responsibility of the multilateral institutions, he pointed out that the institutions can further support these members with financing, particularly in areas of infrastructure, and knowledge as they develop as new growth centres.
To successfully confront the challenges of the time, the board chairman said it is necessary to adapt to the circumstances of our time. In this direction, he stated that the IMF this year has refined the flexible credit line to make qualification more predictable and to extend its duration, and created a New Precautionary credit Line with more tailored conditionality.
He pointed out that the capacity of the membership to act together, to act promptly, and to act decisively has supported the institutions in providing unprecedented levels of assistance to members in need during the financial crisis, and in what has followed since.
Members, he said responded by strengetning the lending capacity of the IMF and the World Bank Group to support future financing of growth and to help countries better confront risks.
In his address to the plenary session IMF Managing Director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn the recovery is here and when we look at the figures, wee see that at the global level, growth is coming back, but we all know that it is fragile and uneven, and fragile because uneven.
Said him, “Looking into Asia, looking to South America, things are going rather well. Even looking to Africa, where most countries in sub-saharan Africa are going back to growth much farther, faster, than they did in the past. In the past when you had such a global crisi, African countries were delayed by something like a year before they would catch up. This time, it didn’t happen, and they are really growing fast since now.