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Don't shoot the ambulance

After a decade of growth in Africa, the IMF and World Bank's economists are offering loans and policy advice again

The financial crisis has had one indisputable effect: it has put the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund back in business in Africa. Suddenly there is no more talk about the irrelevance of the Bretton Woods Institutions. Those who chart an African development path relying on commodity demands from Asia and commercial financing from bond markets are told to look at the prices in the terminal markets in Asia, Europe and North America, and to look at the difficulties of Gabon and Ghana, which both floated Eurobonds in the last two years....

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Don't shoot the ambulance

After a decade of growth in Africa, the IMF and World Bank's economists are offering loans and policy advice again

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