WASHINGTON/MONROVIA – Ebola is costing the three West African countries worst hit by the outbreak more than $2 billion as the deadly virus causes their economies to slow down or shrink, the World Bank said on Tuesday.
The bank sharply revised down its 2014 and 2015 economic growth estimates for Sierra Leone and Guinea from its previous analysis in October, but said the outlook for Liberia was improving slightly.
This year, Liberia’s gross domestic product growth will be just 2.2 percent, compared with the 2.5 percent forecast in October and 5.9 percent before the Ebola crisis. In Sierra Leone, growth is now forecast at 4 percent, down from 8 percent in October and 11.3 percent pre-crisis, the World Bank said.
Guinea will grow just 0.5 percent, compared with the 2.4 percent forecast in October and 4.5 percent pre-crisis. All three countries had been growing rapidly in recent years and through the first half of 2014, the bank said.
For 2015, it now forecasts Sierra Leone’s economy will shrink 2.0 percent, down from a 7.7 percent growth forecast in October and 8.9 percent before the crisis. Guinea will shrink 0.2 percent versus October’s estimate of 2 percent growth and a pre-outbreak forecast of 4.3 percent.
In Liberia, “where there are signs of progress in containing the epidemic and some increasing economic activity”, the bank increased its 2015 GDP growth estimate to 3.0 percent, up from 1.0 percent in October, but still less than half the pre-crisis estimate of 6.8 percent.
The report comes as the World Bank Group’s president, Jim Yong Kim, begins a two-day visit to West Africa to discuss ways of addressing the outbreak. The World Health Organization said on Tuesday that some 6,055 people had died of Ebola in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea out of more than 17,000 cases.
Kim pledged further support to Liberia, which has the highest death toll at over 3,000 people, in the healthcare, infrastructure and agricultural sectors over the next 18 months.
He said the World Bank was working with the IMF and the African Development Bank on preparing “several tranches of budget support” for the country.
“This report reinforces why zero Ebola cases must be our goal,” Kim said in a statement. “While there are signs of progress, as long as the epidemic continues, the human and economic impact will only grow more devastating.”
(Additional reporting by Emma Farge; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)