World Bank official warns on human crisis in Africa

Special Report:Global Financial Crisis

LAGOS, Feb. 2 (Chinese media) -- The World Bank's Chief Economist on Africa Shanta Devarajan has warned that the global financial crisis would pose a greater danger of human crisis for Africa.

Devarajan gave the warning on Sunday in a statement posted on the World Bank's website, saying that since Africa has already caught the flu of the global financial crisis, it will likely experience a deceleration.

"Africa was spared the first-round effects of banking failures, it is already facing the second-round impacts of declining capital flows, remittances, stagnating foreign aid, falling commodity prices and export revenues," he was quoted saying by the News Agency of Nigeria on Sunday.

He said his colleague at the World Bank, Justin Lin, had earlier warned against allowing the global financial crisis to become a human crisis.

"Child mortality, for instance, rises during decelerations, but hardly falls during acceleration and primary school completion rates are substantially lower in countries experiencing growth decelerations, as is life expectancy," he added.

Devarajan said the official development assistance either per capita or as a share of GDP is lower during decelerations, noting that it is pro-cyclical.

The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Chukwuma Soludo, admitted last week that Nigeria is vulnerable to the financial crisis.

Economic experts in the country have listed the meltdown in the capital market, gradual depletion of the foreign reserve and the falling crude oil prices as effects of the global financial crisis.