'Quite historic' - Ofori-Atta on G7 directive to World Bank

Ken Ofori-Atta, Finance Minister, has described as 'quite historic' a move where the Group of Seven (G7) nations called on Finance Ministers from some African countries for a meeting in Washington DC. The G7 is made of an informal grouping of seven of the world’s advanced economies; namely: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, United States of America and the European Union. This group invited finance ministers from South Africa, Senegal, Togo, Zambia, Ghana, Guinea, Rwanda, Chad, Tunisia and Morocco for the all-important meeting. It was reported by Accra-based 3news that the G7 instructed the World Bank to provide financial support to Ghana and other African countries who were at the meeting. This financial support, according to the report, is to enable the African countries to deal with the impact of the economic crisis caused by force majeures. “It was actually quite a historic meeting because for the first time the G7 has called African Finance Ministers to deliberate on the crisis that they see. “...these are exogenous factors that have really (affected), even their own economies (and) put it under serious stress and are, therefore, looking for ways in which they can add to the capital needs to make sure that things do not deteriorate. So countries such as Ghana, Senegal, Tunisia, and Morocco were there,” Ken Ofori-Atta said as quoted by 3news. He added “The empathy is clear, the need to [introduce] something new and therefore, their interest in encouraging the World Bank to find more resources, tapping into the private sector so that they will stabilize where things are going. “They have reduced growth rate to 2.7 per cent expecting a grim and difficult period, they don’t want to make sure that things deteriorate from liquidly to insolvency to chaos.” The meeting brings together central bankers, ministers of finance and development, parliamentarians, private sector executives, representatives from civil society organizations and academia to discuss issues of global concern, including the world economic outlook, poverty eradication, economic development, and aid effectiveness. PEN/SARA