The bank and the International Monetary fund are racing to provide emergency fund for Africa and other developing regions to combat the virus.

The World Bank’s bank’s Africa Pulse Report predicts Sub-Sahara Africa’s economy will contract 2,1% to 5,1% from growth of 2,4% last year.

It expects coronavirus to cost sub-Saharan Africa $37 billion to $79 billion in output losses this year due to trade and value chain disruption, among other factors.

Africa has at least 11 440 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, 574 deaths and 1 405 recoveries.

World Bank Vice President for Africa Hafez Ghanem says the COVID-19 pandemic will hit African countries particularly hard.

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At their virtual meeting centre on Addis Abba, the ministers accepted that the immediate priority must be the health and humanitarian aspects of the battle.

Finance Minister Tito Mboweni was one of co-chairs of the second virtual meeting of his African peers on the COVID 19 pandemic.

The call for a $100-billion immediate assistance package grabs the headlines.

The ministers say debt relief from bilateral, multilateral and commercial partners could be coordinated with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the European Union.

Since it will take the world economy between 24 and 36 months to recover from the lockdown to curb the pandemic, the debt relief to Africa should be spread over two to three years.

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President Kaïs Saied says he’ll dissolve Parliament today if it rejects the government proposed by his Prime Minister.

The majority Ennhada Party is the stumbling block.

The Prime Minister from this moderate Islamist party named by President  Kaïs Saied stepped down when  he could not find parliamentary approval for a government. 

Saied then named another premier Elyes Fakhfakh who is having similar difficulty because Ennhada is withholding support.

It’s being called the biggest constitutional crisis since Tunisia became independent from France 64 years  ago.

The political impasse aside, Tunisia faces a major economic hurdle when  the four-year International Monetary Fund aid package comes to and end in April.

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Luanda’s President Joao Lourenco says their future relationship will be characterised by  common sense and pragmatism.

Angola’s never forgiven Portugal for quitting  a fiercely fought liberation war  in 1974  without handing power to any party.

This left the former colony fighting an exhausting civil war that lasted 28 years.

Before the slump in oil prices, Angola had become a major investor in cash-strapped Portugal that was forced to take a $100 billion bailout from the  European Union and International Monetary Fund.

Meeting in Luanda, President Joao Lourenco and Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa agreed to develop future relations to the mutual prosperity  of both countries.

Lourenco will visit Lisbon in November.

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Ending weeks of encouraging declines, the number of new cases is rising in all three of the worst hit countries– mostly in Sierra Leone.

A week after President Ernest Bai Koroma lifted travel restrictions in Sierra Leone, saying it would boost the local economy, the World Health Organisation reports 80 new cases of Ebola in his country.

It’s blaming what it calls unsafe practices that include mourners touching the bodies of victims at funerals and hampering efforts to containing the disease because of suspicion against health workers.

The International Monetary Fund is offering the Ebola hit countries – Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone – $100 million in debt relief.

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