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A new IMF report has highlighted the impact of the global financial crisis on 26 low-income countries. It says poverty and political instability could increase unless at least US$25 billion is injected into 22 of these ailing economies this year.
IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said spending on targeted social safety-net programmes should be ramped up to protect the poor. "Bilateral donors must ensure that aid flows are scaled up, not trimmed back," he said.
The report noted that migrants’ remittances would decline in 2009, affecting countries like Tajikistan, where over half the population lives below the poverty line and where remittances were equal to 45 percent of GDP in 2008, according to the World Bank.
The 26 low income countries include many covered by IRIN, including Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Ghana, Lesotho, Liberia, Mauritania, Nigeria, Sudan and Zambia in Africa, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Papua New Guinea, Tajikistan and Vietnam in Asia.
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