African Finance Ministers have called for a coordinated COVID-19 response to mitigate the adverse impact of the pandemic on economies and society, noting that Africa needs an immediate emergency economic stimulus of $100 billion. They emphasized that without coordinated efforts, the COVID-19 pandemic will have major and adverse implications on African economies and the society at large, the UN Economic Commission for Africa said in a release. Original economic forecasts in most economies are on average, being downgraded by 2-3 percentage points for 2020 due to the pandemic, the ECA pointed out. The ECA Executive Secretary said COVID-19, which already strongly hit Africa’s major trading partner, China, would inevitably impact Africa’s trade. The ECA estimates COVID-19 could lower Africa’s export revenues from fuels at around $101 billion in 2020.

Source: The North Africa Journal March 24, 2020 17:37 UTC