The September 11 terror attacks in the United States will have disastrous consequences for the daily lives of many Africans already resigned to poverty, disease and marginalization, warn experts across the continent.
"Necessarily, developing countries that are tied to developed countries will suffer," Ivorian Finance Minister Alain Bohoun Bouabre said in response to a pessimistic World Bank report issued Monday.
World Bank president James Wolfensohn warned of "another human toll that is largely unseen and one that will be felt in all parts of the developing world, especially Africa.
"We estimate that tens of thousands more children will die worldwide and some 10 million more people are likely to be living below the poverty line of one dollar a day because of the terrorist attacks," Wolfensohn said.
He said "many, many more people will be thrown into poverty if development strategies are disrupted."
Tourism has already been heavily affected, especially in Zimbabwe where it accounts for 12 percent of the economy and was already hit by election-related violence.
British, German and US tourists who once flocked to the country are staying away in droves, according to hotels, travel agencies and Air Zimbabwe.
In Senegal, which normally attracts tourists from Europe, operators are reporting cancellations but remain hopeful that effects will be minimal.
The World Bank report said that falling commodity prices may impoverish another two million to three million people in Africa.
Even before the attacks, commodity prices were forecast to fall 7.4 percent on average this year.
Oil prices have fallen to 22 dollars a barrel, down five dollars from before the attacks, the World Bank said, possibly setting the stage for lower agricultural and metals commodity prices next year.
In Ivory Coast, the world's top producer of cocoa, projections of 1.5 percent growth this year and 2.5 percent growth in 2002 are no longer realistic, Bouabre said.
A cocoa industry official, Locine Cisse, said the World Bank report would provoke a "voluntary fall in prices" of raw materials in London and New York.
"Even when the West swims in plenty, we don't benefit," said Cisse, of the Ivorian Federation of Coffee and Cocoa Producers. "But now ... it won't be the plantations that die. It's going to be human lives that will disappear."
In South Africa, whose economy is one-quarter driven by exports, diamond giant De Beers has modified sales projections downward, the daily Business Day reported.
In the face of a drop in world demand, South African commodity exports are expected to suffer, as well as the aeronautical industry and, as elsewhere, tourism.
The South African currency the rand is at an all-time low of 9.14 to the dollar, and fuel and food staple prices have dropped.
Oil-exporting countries such as Nigeria fear that crude oil prices will collapse if a recession takes hold in the United States.
A ray of hope came from the National Institute for Economic Policy in Johannesburg, whose research director Asghar Adelzadeah said that if the United States continued to lower interest rates and South Africa followed suit, the domestic market would benefit.
He also pointed to a possible windfall from rising gold prices as investors turn to the precious metal in search of a safe haven away from turbulent stock and currency markets. |
