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From Isaac Anumihe, Abuja
Following the ongoing Ukraine-Russian war, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has projected a global economic downturn from the earlier predicted 3.6 per cent to 2.6 per cent this year.
According to the Director, UNCTAD Division on Globalisation and Development Strategies, Richard Kozul-Wright,
the Russian invasion of Ukraine is the main contributing factor to the potentially devastating one per cent drop in projected global economic growth this year.
“We anticipated back in September of last year that the global economy would grow by around 3.6 per cent. We expect it to grow by 2.6 per cent this year and of course, the main contributing factor to that, is the war in Ukraine.”
He said that with inflation on the rise and developing countries already weighed down by a $1 trillion debt burden to pay back to creditors, the UN body decried the inadequate financial measures already taken to help them withstand exchange rate instability, rising interest rates and soaring food and fuel prices. “Wholesale multilateral fiscal reform – possibly on the scale and ambition of the US Marshall Plan that shouldered Western Europe following the Second World War – is urgently needed to improve the financial liquidity of developing countries.
