10, January 2023
CDC calls on plantation workers to return to Southern Cameroons 0
Cameroon’s second largest employer, the state-run Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC), is calling for thousands of plantation workers who fled the country’s separatist conflict to return to work. About half the company’s 20,000 workers left more than four years ago over unpaid wages and after deadly and brutal attacks. The company last week said it was safe to return, but workers are skeptical and say it should first rebuild homes destroyed or damaged in the conflict.
The CDC said it wants thousands of workers back at banana, palm oil, and rubber plantations in the restive Southwest region. Managers of the state-run giant on Monday visited towns and villages in the region to meet with workers who fled unrest in 2018 and ask them to return.
Cameroon Agricultural and Allied Workers Trade Union President Gabriel Mbene Vefonge, who was part of the delegation, said the corporation has promised to pay back wages to those workers who return.
“Most of them are doing mean (menial) jobs in many areas of this country, so we are calling them to come back,” he said. “Their security is being guaranteed by the state and we have seen in the last six months there is relative calm. For those who had wounds, we think that their wounds are healed, and the CDC management is taking care of them. Our members should come back to work.”
Cameroon’s military says it has chased the rebels from the plantations, which armed groups used for training camps.
In 2018, the rebels ordered workers to leave the plantations and warned that those who refused would be attacked.
Authorities say the armed groups chopped off fingers of scores of workers suspected of collaborating with the government and torched hundreds of homes, schools, and factories.
William Lekunja, a worker at a plantation in Meanja, said he escaped in 2018. He said he will only return if the company improves work and living conditions in villages damaged in the conflict.
“They cannot eat well because what they have is too meager,” he said. “Others who have gone there came back with testimonies. Their hospitals bills are paid by themselves, there is no good housing for them, no good water for them.”
Cameroon’s government says some of the company’s former workers are owed more than two years’ back pay. The company has vowed to pay back wages but says the conflict and exodus of workers led to a massive drop in production and sales.
The government says sales and revenue increased after about 2,000 workers returned in 2021 and 2022.
CDC general manager Franklin Ngoni Njie said if the remaining 8,000 workers return, the company’s sales will return to previous levels.
He said they would then be able to afford paying back salaries and reconstructing destroyed buildings.
“The solution is getting back to work,” he said. “Working and making money, money to help pay wages. To pay those who are working, just salaries alone, costs the corporation about 900 million francs. It is difficult to get that amount of money, but that notwithstanding, we will try to do what must be done to continue to operate.”
Cameroon’s separatist conflict was sparked in 2016 when predominantly English-speaking western regions protested discrimination by the country’s French-speaking majority.
Cameroon’s military responded with a crackdown and rebels took up arms claiming to defend the English-speaking minority.
The U.N. says the conflict has since left 3,500 people dead and 750,000 displaced.
Source: VOA
11, January 2023
World Bank: Sharp, Long-lasting Slowdown to Hit Developing Countries Hard 0
Global growth is slowing sharply in the face of elevated inflation, higher interest rates, reduced investment, and disruptions caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to the World Bank’s latest Global Economic Prospects report.
Given fragile economic conditions, any new adverse development—such as higher-than-expected inflation, abrupt rises in interest rates to contain it, a resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic, or escalating geopolitical tensions—could push the global economy into recession. This would mark the first time in more than 80 years that two global recessions have occurred within the same decade.
The global economy is projected to grow by 1.7% in 2023 and 2.7% in 2024. The sharp downturn in growth is expected to be widespread, with forecasts in 2023 revised down for 95% of advanced economies and nearly 70% of emerging market and developing economies.
Over the next two years, per-capita income growth in emerging market and developing economies is projected to average 2.8%—a full percentage point lower than the 2010-2019 average. In Sub-Saharan Africa—which accounts for about 60% of the world’s extreme poor—growth in per capita income over 2023-24 is expected to average just 1.2%, a rate that could cause poverty rates to rise, not fall.
“The crisis facing development is intensifying as the global growth outlook deteriorates,” said World Bank Group President David Malpass. “Emerging and developing countries are facing a multi-year period of slow growth driven by heavy debt burdens and weak investment as global capital is absorbed by advanced economies faced with extremely high government debt levels and rising interest rates. Weakness in growth and business investment will compound the already-devastating reversals in education, health, poverty, and infrastructure and the increasing demands from climate change.”
Growth in advanced economies is projected to slow from 2.5% in 2022 to 0.5% in 2023. Over the past two decades, slowdowns of this scale have foreshadowed a global recession. In the United States, growth is forecast to fall to 0.5% in 2023—1.9 percentage points below previous forecasts and the weakest performance outside of official recessions since 1970. In 2023, euro-area growth is expected at zero percent—a downward revision of 1.9 percentage points. In China, growth is projected at 4.3% in 2023—0.9 percentage point below previous forecasts.
Excluding China, growth in emerging market and developing economies is expected to decelerate from 3.8% in 2022 to 2.7% in 2023, reflecting significantly weaker external demand compounded by high inflation, currency depreciation, tighter financing conditions, and other domestic headwinds.
By the end of 2024, GDP levels in emerging and developing economies will be roughly 6% below levels expected before the pandemic. Although global inflation is expected to moderate, it will remain above pre-pandemic levels.
The report offers the first comprehensive assessment of the medium-term outlook for investment growth in emerging market and developing economies. Over the 2022-2024 period, gross investment in these economies is likely to grow by about 3.5% on average—less than half the rate that prevailed in the previous two decades. The report lays out a menu of options for policy makers to accelerate investment growth.
“Subdued investment is a serious concern because it is associated with weak productivity and trade and dampens overall economic prospects. Without strong and sustained investment growth, it is simply impossible to make meaningful progress in achieving broader development and climate-related goals,” said Ayhan Kose, Director of the World Bank’s Prospects Group. “National policies to boost investment growth need to be tailored to country circumstances but they always start with establishing sound fiscal and monetary policy frameworks and undertaking comprehensive reforms in the investment climate.”
The report also sheds light on the dilemma of 37 small states—countries with a population of 1.5 million or less. These states suffered a sharper COVID-19 recession and a much weaker rebound than other economies, partly because of prolonged disruptions to tourism. In 2020, economic output in small states fell by more than 11%— seven times the decline in other emerging and developing economies. The report finds that small states often experience disaster-related losses that average roughly 5% of GDP per year. This creates severe obstacles to economic development.
Policymakers in small states can improve long-term growth prospects by bolstering resilience to climate change, fostering effective economic diversification, and improving government efficiency. The report calls upon the global community to assist small states by maintaining the flow of official assistance to support climate-change adaptation and help restore debt sustainability.