As the spring meetings of the IMF and the World Bank open this week, the two institutions are warning of the deterioration in the global economic situation. After the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine adds further uncertainty. Inflation has become a global and worrying phenomenon for social stability. The IMF is expected to announce a downward revision to its growth forecasts on Tuesday. Even if the world is not going to plunge into recessions, the situation is hardly encouraging.
The world economy is in bad shape, have already warned the two major Bretton Woods institutions, the IMF and the World Bank. At the start of the year, they had revised their growth forecasts for 2022 downwards. They should start again this week, as the picture has darkened.
What worries Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director of the IMF, is the war in Ukraine which comes on top of the Covid-19 pandemic, the effects of which have not disappeared. Because of the conflict, 143 countries in the world will see their growth forecasts deteriorate.
Inflation is particularly alarming warns the IMF. It generates food crises in Africa and social instability in the less wealthy countries. Another disturbing phenomenon, the growing fragmentation of the global economy into geopolitical blocs “.
In a world where a war in Europe breeds hunger in Africa, where a pandemic can circle the world in days and last for years, where gas emissions in one place cause sea levels to rise everywhere, the threat to our collective prosperity and the future of international cooperation should not be underestimated.
Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the IMF
Kristalina Georgieva and David Malpass, the president of the World Bank, all pointed out last week the dangers of isolation. Recalling that the end of the cold war had at the time ushered in a global era of prosperity, the great beneficiaries of which were the emerging countries