President of Malawi Lazarus Chakwera held a meeting on the African country’s economy with IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva Friday (March 18) at the IMF headquarters in Washington, DC.

The African country is struggling with debt issues and exacerbated by the impact of Covid-19 and more recently with the rising costs of food and oil imports. It relies on tobacco exports as its main source of external income.

“War in Ukraine means hunger in Africa,” Georgieva said on CBS Face the Nation program Sunday March 13^th. 

Malawi is in talks with international lenders to restructure as much as $1 billion of debt as the nation seeks an economic program from the International Monetary Fund.

Malawi owes $757 million to Afreximbank and $145 million to the Eastern and Southern Trade and Development Bank, along with $209 million of arrears, as of December 2020, according to the IMF.

The IMF typically requires countries to construct credible reforms to prove that they can sustain their debt payments before offering loans.

See more on the Fund’s work with Malawi at: https://www.imf.org/en/Countries/MWI