Photograph — Independent UK

According to the International Monetary Fund, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has driven the global economy into a downturn that requires grand and massive funding to assist developing nations.

“It is clear that we have entered a recession” that will be worse than in 2009 following the global financial crisis, said Kristalina Georgieva, Chairwoman and Managing Director of the IMF.

Kristalina said with the current stall in the global economy an estimate of  $2.5 trillion will be required to finance the needs of emerging markets. She also warned that the figure is on the lower end.

She further hinted that low-income countries had suffered a loss of capital of more than $83billion in recent weeks and can overcome a large fraction of the deficit, however, their domestic resources are insufficient and many already have high debt loads.

It would be recalled that a few days ago, Aina Ahmed, Nigeria’s Minister of Finance revealed that the African giant is bound for a recession if the coronavirus pandemic persists longer than six months.

Although medical research is ongoing, It is still uncertain when the world will be able to end the pandemic.

Even as nations are adopting countermeasures to mitigate the spread of the virus, it will be sensible to also start strategic planning ahead to deal with the aftermath of the pandemic. This is very crucial, especially in terms of the losses recorded within the economic sectors (i.e revenue, manufacturing, banking, and unemployment).

The IMF will also be working collectively with other financial institutions like The World Bank, World Health Organization, African Development Bank and African Union to respond to the pandemic. 

The financial institution further reiterated its support in times like this “Countries in sub-Saharan Africa can be assured they have the full force and full speed of the IMF.”

According to The Balance,” a recession is a significant decline in economic activity, lasting more than a few months. There’s a drop in the following five economic indicators: real gross domestic product, income, employment, manufacturing, and retail sales”

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