UN warns Lebanon is severely harmed by currency depreciation
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A top UN official acknowledges that "Lebanese people are still waiting for their leaders to act to rescue the country."
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Lebanese pound banknotes are seen at a currency exchange shop in Beirut, Lebanon. (Reuters)
Joanna Wronecka, UN’s Special Coordinator for Lebanon, warned in a tweet that the Lebanese people are severely harmed by currency depreciation and inflation three years after Lebanon declared its 1st ever-sovereign default.
She also noted that the "Lebanese are still waiting for their leaders to act to rescue the country."
Wronecka further argued that reforms agreed upon with the IMF are "crucial and inevitable."
3 yrs after Lebanon announced its 1st ever sovereign default, Lebanese are still waiting for their leaders to act to rescue the country. People r desperate to see their salaries severely diminished by currency depreciation &inflation. Reforms agreed w/ IMF are crucial &inevitable
— Joanna Wronecka (@JWronecka) March 24, 2023
This comes shortly after a visiting International Monetary Fund delegation said Thursday that crisis-hit Lebanon is "at a very dangerous moment," criticizing slow progress on reforms needed to unlock billions in loans.
In April 2022, Lebanon and the IMF came to a conditional agreement on a $3 billion loan that was required to revive the nation's economy, which had been in a free slide since 2019.
The nation has been without a president and only a caretaker government is in charge since last year as the nation descends further into what the World Bank has called one of the greatest economic crises the world has seen since the middle of the 19th century.
Most of Lebanon's population is now living in poverty as a result of the country's financial crisis, and the political class, which is frequently held responsible, has done nothing to address the situation.
