Chief Executive of the Ghana Investment and Promotion Centre (GIPC), Yofi Grant, has described the Russian-Ukrainian crisis as a worrying development to the global economy and Ghana’s as well.
According to him, the war in Ukraine may be thousands of kilometers away but it is hitting people on the African continent with full force. Food prices are skyrocketing particularly for staples including bread and vegetables.
Countries on the continent have been hardest hit by conflicts, climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic that have disrupted their progress and economic development.
During a presentation at the second edition of The Money Summit organized by the B&FT, Mr. Grant said. “The world is in chaos right now because I just came from a long trip through a couple of countries and I can still tell you that it’s not easy anywhere. Just when we thought we were getting Covid and everything was okay they had to have a fight in Russia and Ukraine which has then plunged the world into another set of chaotic parameters.
Today as we’re speaking, we’re on the verge of a global food crisis. A lot of people are not even aware. A friend of mine called me from Nigeria and said common bread we can’t even get bread to eat. Then I asked why and he said they import almost all the wheats from either Russia or Ukraine. So these are the things that we have to understand that when we want to boost confidence in our business, we ought to be very sensitive to some of these things that happen.”
The war in Ukraine has delivered a shock to global energy markets. Now the planet is facing a deeper crisis: a shortage of food.
A crucial portion of the world’s wheat, corn and barley is trapped in Russia and Ukraine because of the war, while an even larger portion of the world’s fertilizers is stuck in Russia and Belarus.
The result is that global food and fertilizer prices are soaring. Since the invasion last month, wheat prices have increased by 21 percent, barley by 33 percent and some fertilizers by 40 percent.
The upheaval is compounded by major challenges that were already increasing prices and squeezing supplies, including the pandemic, shipping constraints, high energy costs and recent droughts, floods and fires.
Now economists, aid organizations and government officials are warning of the repercussions: an increase in world hunger.
The looming disaster is laying bare the consequences of a major war in the modern era of globalization. Prices for food, fertilizer, oil, gas and even metals like aluminum, nickel and palladium are all rising fast and experts expect worse as the effects cascade.
