The director of the African department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Abebe Aemro Selassie, admitted this Thursday that he had started a dialogue on a new financing program for Mozambique, in a pandemic context.
Mozambique has publicly stated that there is a need for a financing program by the IMF to balance the macroeconomic challenges that the country already faced and that only deepened in the current context of the Covid-19 pandemic. This year, the country’s GDP should register negative economic growth, around 0.5%.
During the press conference that served to present the Economic Perspectives for Sub-Saharan Africa, Selassie replied: “Yes, the authorities expressed interest in having a financial support program, and I am very pleased to start negotiations on this”
However, it leaves a warning, given that this year, funding programs are fast, it encourages countries to develop “their own strong and solid recovery”.
Regarding the situation of terror experienced in Cabo Delgado, in the north of the country, the economist also showed “great concern” with the attacks and recalled other cases in which the violence has occurred in neighboring countries. “In the Lake Chad basin, with Boko Haram, and there are also security challenges in Mali that contaminate Nigeria, Burkina Faso and large parts of the Sahel,” pointed out Selassie, stressing that “solutions must be sought to combat this threat, it is very important, not only for Mozambique, but also for neighboring countries ”.
Cabo Delgado has been the target of attacks by terrorists for three years. So far, about 250,000 people have had to be displaced and more than 1,000 have succumbed.
