The head of the International Monetary Fund has warned that the global economy faces its “biggest test since the Second World War”.
At the start of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Kristalina Georgieva said the war in Ukraine was "devastating lives, dragging down growth and pushing up inflation”.
Spiralling food and energy prices are squeezing households around the world, while central banks are tightening monetary policy to rein in inflation.
When combined with volatile financial markets, the IMF said the world faces a “potential confluence of calamities.”
Ms Georgieva has warned countries not to “surrender to the forces of geo-economic fragmentation that will make our world poorer and more dangerous”.
It came as Ukraine set out plans for a US$1 trillion package of reconstruction support, financed from confiscating frozen Russian assets.
The IMF chief said she does not expect a recession for the world's major economies - but could not rule one out.
"No, not at this point," she told a panel at the event.
"It doesn’t mean it is out of the question."
The global economic outlook has got worse in the month since the IMF downgraded its 2022 growth outlook because of the war in Ukraine, China's slowdown and global price shocks, particularly for food, she said.
"In a short period of time...the horizon has darkened."
