Naira Depreciation Will Worsen Nigeria’s Food, Energy Crisis – World Bank

The decreasing value of the Nigerian naira and currencies of most developing economies are driving up food and fuel prices in ways that could deepen the food and energy crises that many of them already face, according to the World Bank’s latest Commodity Markets Outlook report.

This was recently revealed to Nigerians, and concerned citizens have been reacting.

According to the report, from the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 through the end of last month, the price of Brent crude oil in US dollars fell nearly six percent, but still yet, because of currency depreciations, almost 60 per cent of oil-importing emerging market and developing economies saw an increase in domestic-currency oil prices during this period.

It added that the elevated prices of energy commodities that served as inputs to agricultural production have been driving up food prices.

It read, “During the first three quarters of 2022, studies by the World Bank Group showed that food-price inflation in South Asia averaged more than 20 per cent. Food price inflation in other regions, including Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Eastern Europe and Central Asia, averaged between 12 and 15 per cent.”

WOW.