The eurozone crisis has plunged the world’s economy into the danger zone.
Europe’s troubles are hitting the once robust growth of the big BRIC hitters – Brazil, Russia, India and China. These are the very countries that prevented the rest of the world from suffering into a far deeper slowdown in the 2008 financial crisis.
The IMF predicts the global economy will grow by 3.25 percent in 2012, down from an earlier forecast of four percent.
“The European issue is a global issue, it is a global crisis and we need global co-operation, global action – that’s ever clear. The global economic slowing down, the volatility in the financial markets has an impact across all the different regions. So that is the reason why we ask everyone to work together to build this firewall,” said International Monetary Fund Deputy Managing Director Zhu Min.
It is a firewall that could ultimately help protect those most in need. As the financial crisis takes a bite out of more economies, the number of hungry is growing. Almost one in seven people are under nourished.
“Today, as a result of the financial crisis, there are one billion people on earth who wake up and can’t figure out how to fill a simple cup with food. This is the cup we use to reach about 100 million people who otherwise would face dire circumstances without global generosity,” explained the World Food Programme’s Executive Director Josette Sheeran.
According to UN statistics, under-nutrition contributes to five million deaths of children under five each year in developing countries. With the spectre of the financial crisis these statistics are all the more worrying. Developing countries have been advised to hope for the best but plan for the worst, in the words of the head of macroeconomics at the World Bank Andrew Burns.
