‘Hike in Food, Energy Prices Have Impacted Global Commodity Market’

Ugo Aliogo

The President and Chairman of the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID), Dr. George Donkor, has stated that the hike in food, energy prices have impacted global commodity market, adding that this has resulted in price hikes in various jurisdictions, leading to severe economic challenges.

He noted that inflation is on the high side, especially with countries that had been experiencing low inflationary records such as Japan which he said has been fighting deflation but now they are also battling inflation.

Donkor disclosed this recently in Geneva, the Switzerland capital when he was awarded the prestigious Prix de la Foundation by the Crans Montana Forum. 

Prince Jean of Luxembourg and Crans Montana Founder and Chairman, Jean Paul Carteron presented the award to him.

He also stated that the world is in economic turmoil as a result of two external shocks, the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, adding that as a result of these challenges, there have been escalating prices of food and energy and economies all over the world are suffering.

In his presentation to the Crans Montana Forum, Donkor expressed optimism that the ECOWAS Bank for International Development was more interested in the solutions more than the challenges.

He called for the need for people to change their orientation and re-engineer value system, “if we are to rise above the economic circumstances we find ourselves.”

“Unless there is a change within, there cannot be a change without,” the EBID President counselled stating, “it is necessary to reinvent foreign policies and diplomatic action based on the necessary and unavoidable acceptance of the other,” he said. 

In his position as EBID, Donkor has focused on the need for implementation of change to drive progress not only in the West African sub-region, but also to stimulate a wider international impact through regional integration and engagement.