COVID-19: Pandemic Has Created Sudden Summersault In Global Financial Outlook – Experts

COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world. The novel virus caught the world totally unprepared creating staccato medical and economic responses.

This new experience has created a sudden summersault in global financial outlook. While some economies are on a nosedive, others are undergoing a monumental shift, creating novel economic outlay and opportunities for digital investment and exploring new tools for economic growth.

Taking cognizance of implications of these strange developments on the economies of Africa, Foreign Investment Network (FIN), Organised an online program with Theme: COVID-19 and The Economic Threat: How Africa can overcome financial crises.

The event witnessed massive participation from financial experts, members of the International Community, United Nations consultants, and many more contributors from various countries in Africa.

The panel discussion was moderated by Nich Kochan, a United Kingdom-based journalist and author of books on economic crime.

There was a general agreement that Africa as a continent has remained an infant too long and the pandemic despite its militating effects can also create the needed push for Africa to get out of its cocoon and redirect its energy into massive infrastructural development, feeding off its citizens and much more.

Christian Paradis, former Canadian Minister of International Development, stressed the need for a coordinated approach in the supply and distribution of materials, reliefs, vaccines, etc to Africa as COVID-19 hits the continent harder.

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“Social distancing and self-isolation as we see in the western world other countries with safety nets are not just possible in most of the countries in Africa and we need to keep that in mind.

“The communication door must be wide open between the African countries in need, the donor countries and the multinational organizations, ” he said.

Victor Politis, Chairman of Prodrig Capital, The Netherlands The future of the continent lies in creating jobs and creating import substitution projects, creating new large projects that will help sub-Saharan Africa emerge strongly from the tragedy they are going through now.

Also, Prof Ken Ife, London Enterprise Ambassador and Chief Economic Strategist in ECOWAS Commission: FAO recognizes Nigeria as one of the countries that produce more food than it requires but 30-40% of it can’t make it into the food chain because of post-harvest losses, poor storage, lack of value additions, lack of quality infrastructure, transport cost, etc.

“Africa should find a way of increasing national savings because national savings is something you can borrow against. Our national savings are very low and we have far more money outside the banking system; we have to be more creative in developing informal savings mechanisms.

“That is where we can get the money to finance our infrastructure and limit external borrowings.

“In Nigeria, we also have the diaspora remittance, $26b much more than the oil revenue, ” he said.

However, Edmond Magoma an entrepreneur from DRC said “It is now time for Africa to find African solutions to African problems. So far, our mindsets are not right.

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“We depend all the time on foreign aids while 80% of the world resources are in Africa. It is clear that Africa has to start to develop its own economy.

“African leaders are failing the African people. We need to start to invest in our own economy, develop our own industry, and become autonomous in terms of food, ” he said.

Earlier, Soji Adeniyi, former Chairman of the United Nations Pensions Fund.

Africa already has an advantage. We are already seeing some solutions coming from different parts of Africa, the Madagascar experience of the COVID organic for instance; we should be talking about it and how to further test it.

“Why are we copying and pasting the model of shutting down knowing that our economy can hardly survive these challenges and yet we are going with the blanket of shut down now or regret later.

“Why are we not trading with ourselves despite the global lockdown?” he asked.

By Idris Tele-Olukoya