IMF Sees Drought Slashing Zambian Economic Growth to 25-Year Low
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A women scoops water from a hole she has dug in a dried up riverbed in Lusitu, Zambia.
Photographer: Themba Hadebe/APThis article is for subscribers only.
Zambia’s economy will probably expand by the smallest amount since 1998 — besides a contraction during the height of the pandemic in 2020 — because of a worse-than-anticipated impact from a record drought that the International Monetary Fund warned will stunt growth.
The Washington-based lender trimmed Zambia’s economic outlook for the second time this year to 1.2% from 2.3%, it said in a statement Thursday. It had already in May more than halved the forecast, based on the impact of what the United Nations said was the worst regional dry spell in more than a century.