DAKAR – The global economic crisis is a matter of ‘life and death’ in the world’s poorest continent, the African Union’s top official, Jean Ping, told the African Development Bank (AfDB) annual meeting on Wednesday.
‘If in developed countries, the crisis is being felt in terms of job losses, in ours it is a question of life and death, with the risk of more conflicts, in particular,’ said Ping, who is head of the AU Commission and a former foreign minister of Gabon.
Ping was speaking at the opening of AfDB’s 44th annual assembly.
According to the bank, the effects of the crisis will create 27 million new poor in Africa in 2009.
‘The risks of the crisis are weighing heavily on the democratic advances which he have made recently,’ Ping said,
The downturn ‘threatens state of law, human rights, threatens the shared values that we are trying to promote on the continent. This concerns everyone,’ he said.
-Nampa-AFP
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