First Independent Mena Newspaper
Axel Van Trotsenburg, World Bank Managing Director of Operations Wednesday called on Tunisia to carry out crucial fiscal reforms which he claimed will put the North African country on development trajectory. “These reforms are equally important for the population,” Trotsenburg said in a tweet following a meeting with Tunisia’s Ministers of Planning and Finance. The […]
The economies of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region are expected to grow by 5.5% this year —the fastest rate since 2016—followed by a slowing of growth to 3.5% in 2023, the World Bank says. Yet this growth is uneven across the region, as countries, still struggling to overcome the lasting effects of […]
Ghana is a classic case of emerging economies in Africa and other parts of the world who have been caught in a perfect storm and are struggling to service their foreign currency denominated loans owing to a strengthening US dollar, rising global interest rates and that is made worse by their excessive borrowing. Ghana is […]
The African Union (AU) reiterated its push for the United States, European Union, and United Kingdom to lift all sanctions against Zimbabwe at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. AU chairman — Senegal’s president Macky Sall — said the “harsh measures continue to fuel a sense of injustice against an entire people, and […]
The trade deficit in Tunisia widened by record 56% in the first semester of 2022, reaching 8.1% of GDP, while the budget deficit, exacerbated by mounting energy and food subsidies, is expected to reach 9.1% in 2022, compared to 7.4% in 2021, according to the World Bank’s latest report. Inflation in this country rose from […]
Hundreds of truckers have stopped working on Cameroon’s border with Chad to protest a ban on heavy trucking into Chad, which depends on Cameroon for 80% of its imported goods. Drivers transporting food and humanitarian assistance slammed what they call Cameroon’s refusal to repair the highly dilapidated road linking northern Cameroon and Chad. The strategically […]
The COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing war in Ukraine have been pushing many electric grid utilities in Africa — which have long been strapped for cash — close to financial collapse, whereby this situation is in turn also slowing down the continent’s clean energy transition. Ghana’s electric grid is in dire straits. In the mid-2010s, […]
Morocco and the World Bank have signed a $500 million financing agreement, representing the first tranche of a loan destined to strengthen human capital for a resilient Morocco. The financing aims to improve protection against health risks, loss of human capital as well as to improve climate risk management and resilience to catastrophic events. The […]
The World Bank has released $100 million for the World Food Program to tackle “deep food insecurity” for 2 million people in Sudan. The Washington-based institution in a statement said the funds will help provide an “emergency safety net” amid worsening hunger in the northeast African nation “caused by a poor harvest and rising international […]
Morocco’s economic growth is expected to slow to 1.1% in 2022 due to a sharp drop in agricultural production but national GDP will increase 4.3% in 2023, the World Bank said. Morocco’s economy grew 7.8% last year as the economy continued to recover from the Covid-19 impact amid an exceptional agricultural output making up for […]