WASHINGTON, October 17. /TASS/. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has recorded growth in military spending in the world amid a complex geopolitical situation and disunity, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said.
"To make matters worse, we live in deeply troubled times. The peace dividend from the end of the Cold War is increasingly at risk. In a world of more wars and more insecurity, defense expenditures may well keep rising while aid budgets fall further behind the growing needs of developing countries," she said speaking at the IMF ahead of the autumn session of the governing bodies of the IMF and the World Bank, which will be held next week.
Georgieva presented a chart showing that annual military spending in the world is growing and approaching $2.5 trillion, while the amount of funds allocated as official development assistance does not even reach $300 billion.
"Even worse, we are in a difficult geopolitical environment. We are all very worried about the expanding conflict in the Middle East and its potential to destabilize regional economies and global oil and gas markets," she added.
"We live in a mistrustful, fragmented world where national security has risen to the top of the list of concerns for many countries. This has happened before—but never in a time of such high economic co-dependence," Georgieva stressed.