The following appeared in the November issue of Business Diary Botswana:

Despite the IMF’s recent projection that Botswana’s economy will contract 10.3% this year, the lender expects a 4.1% uptick next year such that emergency funding would not be required. Back in June the country tapped a $1.5bn “budget support loan” from the African Development Bank–the largest such facility ever granted by the Bank–in order to finance part of a budget deficit then estimated at around 13.5% of GDP, and since revised to 14%. The IMF cited a renewal of demand for diamonds as a central facet of its optimistic forecast. Furthermore, it predicted, GDP growth across sub-Saharan Africa will rise to approximately 4% next year and 5% in 2011, up from 1.1% in 2009. “We think it should be possible for sub-Saharan Africa to recover quicker this time around and have a ‘V-shaped recovery,’”

This post provides links to a number of thought-provoking articles I have read over the past few days that you may also find of interest.

• Fred Bergsten (Foreign Affairs): The dollar and the deficits: How Washington can prevent the next crisis, November 2009. If the US is serious about recovering from the global economic crisis, it must balance the budget, stimulate private saving, and embrace a declining dollar.

• Randall Forsyth (Barron’s): Weak dollar equals strong stocks, for now, October 14, 2009. As long as there is no ready substitute for the dollar, Wall Street can celebrate the currency’s steady decline. And U.S. GDP will be boosted by a cheap greenback’s spur to exports and deterrent to imports. This cannot go on forever, however. The dollar’s fall may not have started on President Obama’s watch, but it may become his problem.