TheCable

Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, says the economy of some West African nations, including Nigeria, is not growing at the same rate as its population.

She made this statement on Thursday while addressing the press at the ongoing International Monetary Fund annual meetings holding in Washington.

“Sub Saharan Africa (which Nigeria is part of one) is one region of the world where growth is way suboptimal. Those countries 2.5 percent. That is too low for the demographic expansion of the region.

“There are different countries if we are to look Rwanda it is a different situation from that of Togo and Ghana is going to be different from Mozambique and so on.

“It is still too low for the demographic growth. For that region to take advantage of the demographic dividend of all the young people who are coming up and trying to have access to the economy and have a job, it is too low.”

Lagarde said the organisation would engage commodity-dependent countries on building up their buffers as such countries are not faring as well as countries with diversified economies.

“We are engaging them in the direction of stabilising; for those that are doing well, build up their buffers and more importantly, diversify the sources of their economic growth.

“What we observed is that those that are heavily commodity dependent are faring less well than those that are well diversified.”

She said the best way to reduce inequality within a population is to reduce the gender gap between men and women, not making the rich pay more taxes.