Okonjo Iweala: My fear for Africa Countries including Nigeria over the Ukraine war

Okonjo Iweala: My fear for Africa Countries including Nigeria over the Ukraine war

Okonjo Iweala

NewsReport gathered that Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), has warned that the war in Ukraine could lead to food shortages in Nigeria and other African countries.

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She delivered this warning during an exclusive interview with BBC World Service, which was broadcast live in Abuja yesterday and was monitored by Saturday Vanguard.

Okonjo-Iweala also cautioned that the war would have global implications, emphasizing the importance of putting a halt to it.

She noted that Russia is the largest exporter of fertilizers, wheat, and maize to several African countries, emphasizing that the prices of the two crops had increased by 62% and36%, respectively since the war began.

The WTO chief also disclosed that the price of soya beans has inflated by 29 percent while noting that the cost of purchasing fertilizers globally has gone up by 300 percent as a result of the ongoing war between the two European nations.

According to her, a recent report by the Africa Development Bank indicates that the war in Ukraine posed a severe challenge to Africa, because of its heavy reliance on cereals imports from both Ukraine and Russia.

“What is being done by the Africa Development Bank shows that in many African countries (including Nigeria) food prices have risen by 20 percent. This is huge.“So, my worry is that we have a food crisis that is brewing, and could become worse if nothing is done about it,” she said.

Meanwhile, the war between Ukraine and Russia has raised concerns about the vulnerability of global supply chains and led to calls in some quarters to re-locate production and sourcing locally in order to ensure stable supplies of critical goods and staples.

In other to address these concerns in the near term, experts are advocating for greater international cooperation on trade to minimize the impact of supply crunches for key commodities where prices are already high by historical standards and to keep markets functioning smoothly.