World Bank Projects $270-700 Billion Finance Gap For Poor Nations.

"The World Bank said yesterday that 129 developing countries face a financing shortfall of $270 to $700 billion this year in [that includes]debt payments...plugging foreign trade deficits, because private-sector financial institutions are refraining from providing funds in emerging markets amid the global financial turmoil....

The multilateral development bank also projected that global industrial production by the middle of 2009 'could be as much as 15 percent lower than levels in 2008' and that world trade is 'on track in 2009 to record its largest decline in 80 years, with the sharpest losses in East Asia.

According to the NYT, the report says that "...the crisis...was causing havoc for poorer countries that had nothing to do with the original problem. As a result, it said, nations in Latin America, Africa and East Asia have had not only their growth stifled but their access to credit as well...."

The Washington Post adds that "...the report predicted that the global economy will shrink this year for the first time since the 1940s, reducing earlier estimates that emerging markets would propel the world to positive growth.... 'We need to react in real time to a growing crisis that is hurting people in developing countries,' World Bank President Robert Zoellick said in a statement. Action is needed by governments and multilateral lenders 'to avoid social and political unrest,' he said...."

"This global crisis needs a global solution and preventing an economic catastrophe in developing countries is important for global efforts to overcome this crisis."

Zoellick, who in February called for a fund to which each developed country would contribute 0.7 percent of its stimulus package to help poorer countries, urged more investment in safety nets, infrastructure, and small and medium-sized companies.