WASHINGTON: The global economic outlook has “darkened significantly” and could deteriorate further, the IMF’s managing director said on Wednesday, citing Russia’s war in Ukraine and the rapid inflation it has caused, threatening widespread hunger and poverty.

The warning comes just months after the IMF already cut its global growth forecast for 2022 and 2023.

The Ukraine war hit as the world was struggling to recover from the ongoing impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, and has caused an acceleration of inflation that endangers the gains of the past two years.

The international crisis-lender is “projecting a further downgrade to global growth” in 2022 and 2023, Kristalina Georgieva said in a blog post published ahead of the meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bankers, scheduled for Friday and Saturday in Bali.

“It is going to be a tough 2022 — and possibly an even tougher 2023, with increased risk of recession,” she wrote.

Published in Dawn, July 14th, 2022