The global economic slump isn't over until unemployment rate in Ghana and across the globe decreases significantly, the head of International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned. The IMF said the number of unemployed worldwide has increased by more than 30 million during the crisis to about 210 million people which began in 2007. “Just reviving growth is not enough. We need growth with jobs. Growth without jobs doesn’t mean much for the man in the street, so obviously for us, the crisis will not be over until the unemployment rate decreases significantly,” Dominique Strauss-Kahn stated. Speaking at a press conference at this year’s IMF/World Bank Annual Meetings in Washington DC, USA, Strauss-Kahn outlined four key challenges for the global economy, urging advanced countries and emerging markets such as Ghana to revive their cooperation to avoid competitive currency adjustments and re-balance the still-fragile world economy. The four key challenges include sovereign debt, jobless recovery, financial sector reform and global corporation. On Sovereign debt, he said fiscal sustainability remains a problem for some countries, particularly those that entered the crisis with very high levels of debt. “So we are strongly in favour of medium-term consolidation, but it doesn’t mean that in the short-term every country will have to tighten as much as possible,” he added. With regards to financial sector reform, Strauss-Kahn was of the view that a lot more needs to be done on supervision and regulation of the financial sector, which was at the heart of the global crisis. In addition, Strauss-Kahn said the IMF supported moves to introduce taxation of the sector. On global cooperation, the IMF boss lamented that even though the world got addressed the economic crisis through very close cooperation, the momentum was decreasing. “One example of this is emerging competition between countries to adjust their currencies to gain advantage. What we all want is the rebalancing of the global economy, and this rebalancing cannot happen without a natural consequence of it, which is a change in the relative value of currencies.” He said: “The recovery clearly is going on but, as everybody knows, it’s still very fragile. And it’s fragile partly because it’s uneven. When you look at Asia, when you look at South America, you see very high rates of growth and obviously for these parts of the world the crisis is over,” he told reporters. “Africa was also seeing a return to something like five per cent growth, but recovery in Europe was sluggish and the outlook in the United States was uncertain. We probably need more information on the third and fourth quarter of this year to know where it is going.” He however said a double-dip recession, forecasted by some commentators, was unlikely to materialize. The IMF boss said to address the aforementioned challenges there was the need to strengthen the legitimacy and governance of the IMF, including on-going reform of the quota system through which members are represented at the IMF. The Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group each year bring together around 10,000 central bankers, ministers of finance and development, private sector executives and academics to discuss issues of global concern, including the world economic outlook, poverty eradication, economic development and aid effectiveness. Officials from the 187 members of the Fund and the World Bank are attending. Under the broader umbrella of the formal sessions, there will be a host of meetings of different official groups, including the Group of Twenty (G-20) advanced economies and emerging markets, the Commonwealth Finance Ministers and the Group of Seven. There will also be meetings with civil society groups, academics and the private sector. Source: Daily Guide