Neglect Africa now and we will face labour shortages globally, IMF warns

West's response to effects of Covid and Ukraine war condemned as shortsighted collective failure' to invest in future human capital

The international community would be playing with fire" if it failed to help Africa recover from Covid and the impact of the Ukraine war, the International Monetary Fund's director for the continent has said.

Failure to invest and support the continent was shortsighted and detrimental to the global economy, as half of the new entrants into the global workforce over the next decade would come from sub-Saharan Africa, Abebe Aemro Selassie, director of the IMF's Africa department, told the Guardian.