The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says Africa will soon obtain a third seat on its board of directors. This comes ahead of this week’s IMF and World Bank meetings in Marrakesh, Morocco, from the 9th of October – the first gathering on the continent since 1973.
The International Monetary Fund says a seat on its executive board will give countries in Sub-Saharan Africa a louder voice.
In a similar move, the World Bank is also set to give a seat to African countries on its board.
The decisions will be made official at a meeting of the two lenders this month in Morocco.
At the meeting, the World Bank and IMF will discuss increased calls for reform to better address debt and climate change issues in low-income countries.
The IMF executive board has 24 directors at the moment and is responsible for conducting the global lender’s day-to-day business.
As the world’s biggest economy, the United States has the most votes, followed by countries like Japan, China, and Western Europe.
However, the news of a seat on the IMF board has been overshadowed by the lender’s forecast of weak growth in sub-Saharan Africa – expected to decelerate to 3 percent this year.
On its part, the World Bank warns in its latest report that sub-Saharan Africa’s economic outlook “remains bleak” and that the region risks “a lost decade of growth” due to “rising instability. -Reporting by Isaac Lukando
