Nigeria Received $6.8Bn in Emergency Support from IMF in 2 Years

International Monetary Fund (IMF) has assisted Nigeria with a total of $6.8 billion in emergency support to cushion the effect of the Corona virus pandemic in 2020 and 2021, according to Ari Aisen, IMF country representative in Nigeria.

Aisen, while speaking at the American Business Council Economic Update where experts explored opportunities and imperatives for businesses in Nigeria, said, “because of the pandemic, IMF has extended emergency assistance of $3.4 billion dollars in 2020. In 2021 also, because of the pandemic there was a Special Drawing Right (SDR) allocation of $3.4 billion.

“It is an additional resource to boost international reserves of the country, so in two years, $6.8 billion was deployed in emergency support for Nigeria.

“That was very helpful together with the policies to contain the negative impact of these huge shock; which was the pandemic, on the Nigerian economy, on the availability of imported goods, on salaries of public servants and on health package that the Ministry of Finance was able to put in place in 2020 when the pandemic hit.”

Ari said that in addition to financing, the IMF has done more in terms of capacity development, adding that “beyond financing, we also leave quite a bit of capacity development to public servants in various areas.”