Nigeria Supports Call For $100Bn Debt Relief For Africa

The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, has expressed Nigeria’s support for the call to support the continent with $100 billion for emergency response to COVID-19.

Africa has been hit by the impact of the coronavirus, as about 29 million people were at risk of extreme poverty, hence the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNESCO) on Friday called for $100 billion support for the continent to mitigate the impact of Covid -19.

Ahmed, in the early hours of Saturday said on Twitter that the call by African leaders was timely, adding that it would save the continent’s economy and population.

“We support the call for mobilisation of $100bn for the continent as an emergency response, with $44bn of the amount earmarked for immediate debt relief. Together with frontline staff, we are navigating pathways to mitigate impact of on our population and on our economies.

“The call by African leaders for the international community to scale up urgent support to the vulnerable in Sub-Saharan African countries with the aim to enable coping with the Covid19 pandemic is not only timely but urgent,” she said.

She added that despite limited institutional capacity and financial resources in the continent, fiscal and monetary authorities in Africa have responded in various ways to contain immediate public health challenge of the pandemic.

She explained that, “In addition to social distancing and improving the state of infrastructure in our public health facilities, we are strengthening social safety nets to ameliorate the impact of #Covid19 on our most vulnerable population.

“While responding to these domestic challenges, we have been equally forced to contend with multiple external shocks such as falling commodity prices, decelerating remittance flows, capital outflows, trade disruptions and rapidly rising debt levels.”

Ahmed expressed appreciation to the World Bank for the $14 million moratorium to help countries mitigate the impact of the virus, adding that the continent would welcome further assistance to restart its economy.

According to her, “We appreciate WorldBank for its timely response with $14bn to assist countries mitigate the initial impact of the pandemic on human population. We also welcome and commend its strong and forward looking commitment to support developing countries’ efforts to restart their economies.”

Nigeria’s economy was predicted by the International Monetary Fund to shrink by 3.4 percent in 2020, while it could lose billions to fall in oil revenue.