Angola: Growth Slips Over Oil Price

Johannesburg — Despite a huge drop being anticipated in oil revenue, the Angolan government should have enough in the bank to push though its promised poverty reduction and health provision plans – provided it is willing to spend.”The economic perspectives for Angola in 2009 are deeply uncertain,” Ricardo Gazel, senior economist at the World Bank in Angola, told Reuters news service on 27 January.According to the World Bank’s new estimate, Angola’s GDP growth would decline to 8 percent for 2009 – a considerable difference compared to the government’s 15.6 percent growth estimate for 2008.

Liberia: Rampaging Caterpillars Threaten Disaster Across Region, Warns UN

A United Nations official has warned today that a UN-led team of experts is in a race against time in its attempt to halt a vast plague of caterpillars, known as armyworms, which has already swarmed across northern Liberia and threatens to march into neighbouring West African countries, destroying all crops and water supplies in its path.The enormous infestation of tens of millions of armyworms, one of the most destructive of insect pests, has forced the Liberian President, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, to call a national emergency in a country where access to food is already precarious.

Zimbabwe: Local Dollar Redundant As Budget Allows Multiple Currency Trading

The government has for the first time acknowledged that the Zimbabwe dollar has no value, after acting Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa, on Thursday detailed the country’s budget proposal in the US greenback.The proposal, which will officially pave the way for the disappearance of the local currency in trading, will make dealing in multiple currencies legal for all Zimbabweans, in theory to curb hyperinflation. The inflation rate is the highest in the world and has seen the local dollar crumble to its current worthless position. The economy has for weeks been informally ‘dollarised’ with almost all sectors trading in US dollars, and the new budget proposal has made the move official.