IMF Urges Action on Africa's Financial Crisis

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has called for a debt relief and aid package to match that of the Gleneagles summit deal in 2005 to counter a severe funding squeeze affecting struggling African countries. The IMF expects annual growth in sub-Saharan Africa to slow from 4.2% to 3.6% this year, as its countries suffer a “big funding squeeze” tied to the drying up of aid and being frozen out of global capital markets. The IMF has provided more than $50bn to the region between 2020 and 2022, but wealthy developed countries also need to do more.