Africa

The International Monetary Fund approved almost $1 billion for Kenya, saying the East African country had met conditions for continued financing under programs to help reform the economy and confront challenges posed by climate change, Bloomberg reported. Kenya got a $415 million disbursement under the Extended Fund Facility and Expanded Credit Facility, programs designed to shore up its economy and boost its foreign exchange reserves, following a fifth review.

Ghana's finance ministry has invited eligible holders to exchange $809.9 million in domestic U.S. dollar bonds for a package of new bonds with lower rates and longer maturities, it said on Friday, Reuters reported. The country's cocoa board launched a debt securities exchange programme on the terms of the government's exchange memorandum, under which it is inviting holders of its short-term debt securities to voluntarily offer to exchange their Cocoa Bills for longer-term debt securities.

Nigeria declared a state of emergency that will allow the government to take exceptional steps to improve food security and supply, as surging prices cause widespread hardship, Reuters reported. The move will trigger a range of measures, including clearing forests for farmland to increase agricultural output and ease food inflation, Dele Alake, a spokesman for President Bola Tinubu, told reporters late Thursday. It follows the president’s removal of fuel subsidies and exchange-rate reform, which has seen the naira fall by 40% after its peg to the dollar was removed last month.

A pair of central bank decisions next week will shape the outlook for a wobbly global economy that the World Bank warns in a downbeat new assessment is battling stubbornly high inflation amid the pandemic’s aftermath and the war in Ukraine, the Washington Post reported. The gloomy forecast arrives days after one threat to global growth was eliminated when President Biden signed legislation Saturday to raise the U.S. debt ceiling and avert a potentially catastrophic government default.