KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, May 30 2024 (IPS)* –The World Bank expects the international economic slowdown to be at its worst in over four decades in 2024. This is mainly due to powerful Western nations’ contractionary macroeconomic and geopolitical policies.
Dismal outlook According to the Bank’s last Global Economic Prospects report, world economic growth will be weakest by the end of 2024. Only the US economy’s strength will statistically prevent a world recession.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
World economic growth was expected to slow to 2.4 per cent in 2024. But even the US-controlled World Bank acknowledges growing geopolitical tensions are the main threat.
Medium-term prospects for most developing economies have worsened due to slower growth in most major economies. This has been exacerbated by tighter monetary policy and credit, sluggish trade and investment growth.
PORT AU PRINCE/NEW YORK, 28 May 2024 (UNICEF)* -– As armed violence continues to drive the deteriorating conditions across Haiti, the UN has estimated that 30 to 50 per cent of armed group members are children who are subject to coercion, abuse and exploitation stemming from persistent social, economic and political fragility caused by ongoing violence that has spiraled parts of the country into chaos.
UNICEF/UNI557180/ErolChildren display artwork they created during psychosocial and educational activities organized by APADEH, in collaboration with UNICEF, at a school in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
The situation for children in Haiti is dire. Ninety per cent of Haiti’s population live in poverty and three million children remain in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.
(UN News)* — Far too little aid is reaching people in Gaza to the extent that children are now starving, UN humanitarians said on Friday [], in a renewed appeal to Israel to respect international law regarding the safe passage of lifesaving relief in the war-shattered enclave.
The alert from the World Health Organization (WHO) follows the finding that more than four in five children “did not eat for a whole day at least once in the three days” ahead of a food insecurity survey.
(UN News)* — Famine in Sudan is “imminent” if aid agencies continue to be prevented from providing relief, UN humanitarians warned on Friday [].
In a bleak assessment of the dire situation in Sudan where conflict is in its second year, the heads of 19 global humanitarian organizations issued an alert that further obstacles to providing aid “rapidly and at scale” will mean that “more people will die”.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 