Zimbabwe is set to get an injection of around US$1 billion, its allocation of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) today, with part of the money earmarked for health, manufacturing, agriculture, education and mining.

IMF member countries started getting their shares of the new special issue SDRs totalling about US$650 billion yesterday.

The IMF has made the new issue of paper gold to help the global economy cope with the major setback caused by Covid-19 and the need to rebuild reserves.

The issue is distributed according to each country’s shareholding in the IMF.

SDRs are not a currency, but an international reserve asset created by the IMF to supplement official reserves of member countries.

They can provide countries with liquidity, and with Zimbabwe’s economic growth expected to hit about 7,8 percent this year, the SDR allocation is expected to play a critical role.

Nigeria’s Ministers of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylvia said, Nigeria’s per capita consumption of gas is the lowest in the sub-Saharan African region; Despite boasting of a 206 trillion standard cubic feet of gas reserves and topping major countries, ,

The Minister stated this at the 2021 yearly sub-Saharan African Oil and Gas Conference tagged ”The future of Upstream and Deepwater Development, Advancing Digitisation and Gas Development Options in Sub-Saharan Africa” and organised by Energy & Corporate Africa.

With the rapidly growing population of Nigeria, expected to outnumber that of the USA in about 20 years, Sylvia feared that the upsurge in the continent’s population could be challenging if not treated as an opportunity.

According to UN predictions, the present global population of 7.6 billion people will grow to 8.6 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050, and 10.6 billion in 2060. And in the year 2100, there will be 11.2 billion people on earth.

“A small number of countries will be responsible for the majority of the global growth. Half of the world’s population increase is anticipated to occur in just five nations in Africa between 2017 and 2050. They are Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, the United Republic of Tanzania, and Uganda,” he said.

The apex regulator, Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), acknowledged some of the gaps that are consistently explored by some operators, though it assured that regulatory efforts were on to block loopholes and check illegalities.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has announced the take-off of its $650 billion set aside under its special drawing right (SDR) to provide liquidity to countries with foreign exchange reserves challenges.

The fund, which IMF accompanies with governance framework support, is expected to help countries to plug external reserves holes and reduce reliance on both domestic and external facilities.

Nigeria is expected to secure $3.35 billion liquidity support to boost wobbly external reserves. The Guardian reported yesterday, that the reserves have been on a downtrend since August 11 after what appeared like a rally in the second half of July turned out to be a breather.

Last week, the gross reserves closed at $33.52 billion while the liquid (or available) form was $33.24 billion, bringing the average figure to $33.38 billion.

Managing Director of IMF, Kristalina Georgieva, noted yesterday, that the largest SDR in the history of the scheme “is a significant shot in the arm of the world and, if used wisely, a unique opportunity to combat this unprecedented crisis”.

She said the SDR allocation would provide additional liquidity to the global economic system, helping to supplement countries’ foreign exchange reserves while “reducing their reliance on more expensive domestic or external debt.