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The drying up of these important sources of development financehas implications for achieving the MDGs in Africa. For example, theexpected declines in development finance will reduce the ability ofAfrican governments to fund health, education, infrastructure andnutrition programmes with dire consequences for poverty reduction.The crisis will also affect poverty in the region through the impact onunemployment. Recent studies indicate that in 2009, the number ofunemployed people in sub-Saharan Africa will increase by 3 millionrelative to the 2007 figure. The social effects of the crisis will be particularlyhard felt in Africa because there are few or no mechanismsto cushion the effect on ordinary people, such as unemploymentbenefits or social security arrangements.African countries have taken several steps in the form of policy responsesto mitigate the impact of the financial crisis on their economies.These include interest rate reductions, recapitalisation offinancial institutions, measures to increase liquidity to banks andfirms, fiscal stimulus, trade policy changes, and regulatory reforms.The measures adopted differ from country to country dependingon available fiscal space as well as the degree of vulnerability to thecrisis. For example, oil-exporting countries in the region have morefiscal space to conduct counter-cyclical policies because they accumulatedhuge foreign reserves during the recent oil price hikes. Inthe non-oil economies, however, the ability to adopt fiscal stimulusmeasures is severely limited.Several countries in the region have set up task forces or committeesto monitor the financial crisis and advise the government on howto respond. Rwanda, Kenya, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic ofCongo are some examples of countries that have adopted this approach.Some actions have also been taken at the regional level to enable Africancountries deal with the financial crisis. For example, the AfricanDevelopment Bank (AfDB) set up a US$1.5 billion Emergency LiquidityFacility to help African countries weather the global slowdown. Italso established a $1 billion Trade Finance Facility to support tradeand investment in Africa.Regional organisations have taken steps to facilitate regional consensuson how to deal with the crisis. ECA, in collaboration with the Af-Integrating Africa185