IMF Podcasts

Africa's strong growth in recent years has helped improve its institutions and policies, spurring more foreign direct investment from countries like China. In this podcast, David Dollar, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, says while China is important to the increasing foreign investment in Africa, its role is far from dominant. Dollar is coauthor of "Investment Renaissance", published in the December 2015 issue of Finance and Development magazine.

World leaders will meet in Paris in December to forge a new climate deal that caps global warming at 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial revolution levels. But in this podcast, Nick Stern, Professor of Economics and Government at the London School of Economics, says the world is not yet on the two degree path as carbon emissions continue to rise. Stern is author of "The Low-Carbon Road" in the December issue of Finance & Development magazine.

Climate change has been at the forefront of discussions within the development community, as world leaders prepare to present their plans to reduce carbon emissions at the United Nations summit on climate change in December. In this podcast, the IMF's Gita Bhatt talks to Christiana Figueres, head of the United Nations framework convention on climate change.

From global financial crises to cybercrime, globalization has its downsides. The director of the Oxford Martin School discusses the pitfalls of the global community's ever closer union, and offers some possible remedies to its darker side.

L'Afrique subsaharienne subit les effets de la baisse des cours des produits de base. Le dernier rapport du FMI sur les Perspectives économiques régionales prévoit que les taux de croissance de la région descendront à leur plus bas niveau depuis six ans. Dans ce Podcast, Céline Allard, co-auteur du rapport, dit que certains pays ont très peu d'épargne à leur disposition pour faire face à cet ajustement.

Economic activity has weakened markedly in sub-Saharan Africa, and the strong growth momentum of recent years has dissipated in several countries. The IMF's latest Regional Economic Outlook for sub-Saharan Africa puts growth at 3¾ percent this year, lower than in 2009 in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. In this podcast, co-author Céline Allard, says low commodity prices, and tighter financing are key factors.

S'il est un pays qui démontre combien il est difficile de transformer les richesses minérales en croissance inclusive, c'est bien la République démocratique du Congo. Selon la dernière évaluation annuelle de l'économie congolaise réalisée par le FMI, les taux de croissance en 2014 atteignaient jusqu'à 9,2 %, mais les indices de pauvreté de la RDC restent parmi les plus élevés au monde. Dans ce podcast, Norbert Toé, Chef de mission pour la RDC, discute les points essentiels du rapport.

If there's one country that exemplifies the difficulty in transforming mineral wealth into inclusive growth- it's the Democratic Republic of Congo. The IMF's latest annual economic assessment indicates while growth rates for 2014 were as high as 9.2 percent, poverty rates in the DRC are still among the highest in the world. In this podcast, Norbert Toé, IMF mission chief for the DRC discusses the key findings in the report.

In development circles, governance is often a code word for corruption. But Daniel Kaufmann, president of the Natural Resource Governance Institute, says governance is much broader. In this podcast, Kaufmann talks about how good governance can actually triple a country's per capita income.

The IMF's latest World Economic Outlook (WEO) shows global growth at 3.1 percent this year, down from 3.4 percent in 2014. The report says while outlooks vary from country to country, the new WEO forecasts predict slower near-term growth nearly across the board, with increasing downside risks to the world economy as commodity prices continue to fall.