The World Wide Economic Downturn Will Greatly Affect The Progression Of Africa!

The global credit crunch is causing some pretty dire predictions for the future state of affairs in Africa.The poverty rate is already the highest in the world in Africa.How will the land of my ancestors weather this evolving economic storm? Here's more from BBC News:

"The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that Africa's economic growth will be affected by the continuing world downturn.

It predicts that growth in sub-Saharan Africa will slow to 3.25% in 2009, half the growth rate it previously thought.

The slump in commodity prices and the credit squeeze are the main culprits, the IMF said.

The report comes ahead of a major IMF conference on Tuesday in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, to discuss how to respond.

The conference will discuss what external support the IMF and other Western donors may be able to provide to help mitigate the impact of the crisis on Africa, which has the highest poverty rate of any region in the world.

The IMF's managing director, Dominique Strauss Kahn, told the BBC that the conference would be a "milestone" and that he wanted to build a different kind of partnership with Africa, as well as providing additional funds.

In recent years, many African countries have enjoyed strong growth rates, boosted by rising commodity prices, including oil.

"The gains of the past decade, during which many countries in sub-Saharan Africa saw sustained high rates of economic growth and rising income levels, are at risk," said Antoinette Sayeh, the IMF's African department director.

Less than a year ago, the IMF's forecast for sub-Saharan Africa was economic growth of 6.7% in 2009, an increase on the 5% growth enjoyed in 2008.

Now the low growth forecast means that many African countries are likely to see very little increase in living standards, and could fall further behind in meeting poverty targets.

It says that 15 of the 21 countries which it judges most vulnerable to the crisis are in Africa."(END OF EXCERPT)Read the rest here.