EU Donates €50m Euros To Fight COVID-19 In Nigeria As IMF Downgrades Nigeria’s Growth To -3.4%
The European Union has donated 50 million Euros to Nigeria for the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
A delegation from the European body made the announcement on Tuesday during a visit to President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa.
The delegation noted that the donation is the single largest donation to any African country.
President Buhari in his response commiserated with the Union over the death recorded so far from the pandemic.
He also thanked the delegation for the donations which he said will be used judiciously.
Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said that Nigeria’s economic growth for 2020 will contract by 3.4% due to the great lockdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
IMF disclosed this in a press conference on the global economic outlook, where it projected that emerging markets and developing economies would grow downward by -1.0% in 2020 due to the impact of the virus.
The body further projected a gradual recovery after lockdown is eased and the introduction of vaccines for the virus, as it said growth would revamp to 6.6% in 2021.
According to the IMF, “sub-Saharan Africa (–1.6 percent)—with growth in Nigeria and South Africa expected at –3.4 percent and –5.8 percent, respectively.
Following the dramatic decline in oil prices since the beginning of the year, near-term prospects for oil-exporting countries have deteriorated significantly: the growth rate for the group is projected to drop to –4.4 percent in 2020.”
The IMF said that there was extreme uncertainty around the global growth forecast because the economic fallout depends on uncertain factors that interact in ways that were difficult to predict.
“These include, for example, the pathway of the pandemic, the progress in finding a vaccine and therapies, the intensity and efficacy of containment efforts.
The disruptions are assumed to be concentrated mostly in the second quarter of 2020 for almost all countries except China (where it is in the first quarter), with a gradual recovery thereafter as it takes some time for production to ramp up after the shock,” the IMF said.
