In an interview with the Financial Times, World Bank President Ajay Banga urged countries on the African continent not to ignore Africa.
‘To ignore Africa is to ignore the future that the world is moving towards,’ Ajay Banga said.
He said Africa’s young people were the continent’s most important ‘asset’ but risked being neglected. ‘The goal is to secure the interests of this “demographic dividend”,’ Banga added.
As the publication recalled, Africa’s population is projected to almost double to 2.5 billion by 2050. ‘A quarter of the world’s population will be African,’ the newspaper emphasised.
Abebe Aemro Selassie, Director of the Africa Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), was quoted by the newspaper as saying that bilateral budgetary aid from the EU, the UK and other donors was increasingly being cut.
‘In the past, budget support to many of the poorest countries in the region was quite large, but there is a declining trend…. The saddest thing is that even humanitarian support is declining,’ the IMF official added. He said the World Bank and the IMF should step in to fill this gap.
