The International Monetary Fund has granted immediate debt relief to 19 African countries and six other nations to help deal with the coronavirus pandemic.
The Fund said on Monday that the relief was provided to these 25 member countries under its Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust (CCRT).
This is to allow these African countries to focus more of their financial resources on fighting the coronavirus pandemic.
The first countries that will receive debt service relief from the CCRT are Afghanistan, Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gambia, Guinea and Guinea-Bissau.
The rest are Haiti, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nepal, Niger, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Tajikistan, Togo and Yemen..
According to the IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva the fund’s executive board approved the first batch of countries to receive grants to cover their debt service obligations to the fund for an initial six months.
Georgieva said the CCRT had about $500 million in resources on hand, including new pledges of $185 million from Britain.
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$100 million is coming from Japan, and undisclosed amounts from China, the Netherlands and others. The fund is also pushing to raise the amount available to $1.4 billion.
According to the IMF about $215 million of the total amount would be used for grants to the first 25 countries over the next six months, with extensions possible up to two years.
“This provides grants to our poorest and most vulnerable members to cover their IMF debt obligations for an initial phase over the next six months and will help them channel more of their scarce financial resources towards vital emergency medical and other relief efforts,” Georgieva said in a statement.
More than 1.9 million people have been infected by the coronavirus globally and 115,242 have died as at April 14, 2020.
Source: Africafeeds.com
