World Bank and IMF: Human calamity erupting from economic crisis

The IMF and World Bank have warned that the global economic crisis is turning into a "human calamity". The two Bretton Woods institutions told their 185 member countries that the worst global slump in generations had already driven more than 50 million people into extreme poverty.

"The global economy has deteriorated dramatically ... Developing countries face especially serious consequences as the financial and economic crisis turns into a human and development calamity," the International Monetary Fund and World Bank joint development committee said in a statement.

How to help the developing world cope with the worst global slump since the 1930s Great Depression was top of the agenda for the bank's steering committee meeting that wrapped up the sibling institutions' two-day gatherings.

World Bank president Robert Zoellick also told the news conference, "No one knows how long this crisis will last."

[AFP]