World Bank Assessment of Sub-Saharan Africa's Growth Prospects

 The World Bank Group published in April 2026 "Africa Economic Update: Making Industrial Policy Work in Africa."

The World Bank projects that growth in Sub-Saharan Africa for 2026 will average 4.1 percent, the same as in 2025.  Downside risks, however, are emerging due in large part to disruptions caused by the war in Iran.  They include rising fuel, food, and fertilizer prices together with tighter financial conditions that are likely to push inflation higher, disrupt economic activity, and disproportionately affect the most vulnerable households which spend a larger share of their income on food and energy.

China, Africa, Demography, and Economics

 The South African Institute for International Affairs published in March 2023 a study titled "China's Demographic Peak: Lessons and Prospects for Africa" by Lauren A. Johnston.  

Africa and China each number about 1.4 billion people (17 percent each of the global population), but Africa's population is on the rise and China's on the decline.  By 2100, Africa's population may comprise almost 38 percent of the world's population and China's a little more than 7 percent.  This paper looks at the impact of these demographic trends on the economies of China and Africa.

Africa Needs to Focus on Agriculture, Not Industrialization

 The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published on 21 April 2023 a paper titled "Africa's Infrastructure-Led Growth Experiment Is Faltering.  It is Time to Focus on Agriculture" by David Ndii.

African policy makers are unable to resist the allure of industrialization fueled by heavy investments in infrastructure, much of it financed by China.  The author argues that Africa will not become economically competitive without a broad-based increase in agricultural productivity.  

African Economic Outlook 2018

The African Development Bank has just released its "African Economic Outlook 2018."

Real output growth in Africa is estimated to have reached 3.6 percent in 2017, up from 2.2 percent in 2016, and to accelerate to 4.1 percent in 2018 and 2019. The recovery in growth has been faster than envisaged, especially among non-resource-intensive economies. Debt levels for most countries have not yet breached the traditional threshold indicators. They have actually declined in nine African countries. But Africa's solid growth rates have not been accompanied by high job growth rates. The lack of job growth has retarded poverty reduction. A priority for African governments is to encourage a shift toward labor-absorbing growth paths, especially modernizing the agricultural sector, which employs most of the population and is typically the main step toward industrialization.

The study includes the following sections:

--Africa's macroeconomic performance and prospects.
--Growth, jobs, and poverty in Africa.
--Africa's infrastructure: great potential but little impact on inclusive growth.
--Financing Africa's infrastructure: new strategies, mechanisms, and instruments.

World Bank Economic Prospects for Sub-Saharan Africa

The World Bank published in January 2018 its "Global Economic Prospects: Broad-Based Upturn, but for How Long?"

The section on Sub-Saharan Africa reports that growth rebounded to 2.4 percent in 2017 after slipping to 1.3 percent in 2016. Growth in the region is projected to rise to 3.2 percent in 2018 and to 3.5 percent in 2019, on the back of firming commodity prices and gradually strengthening domestic demand. Major oil/mineral economies in Nigeria, Angola, and South Africa will experience modest improvement. Non-resource intensive countries are expected to expand at a solid pace, helped by robust investment growth. Cote d'Ivoire is forecast to expand by 7.2 percent, Senegal by 6.9 percent, Ethiopia by 8.2 percent, and Tanzania by 6.8 percent.

Foresight Africa: Priorities for 2018

The Africa Growth Initiative at Brookings has just released a major report titled "Foresight Africa: Top Priorities for the Continent in 2018".

It contains the following chapters:

--Unleashing Africa's Inner Strengths: Institutions, Policies and Champions.
--Sustainable Financing for Economic Development: Mobilizing Africa's Resources.
--Broadening the Benefits of Growth: No One Left Behind.
--Rethinking Africa's Structural Transformation: The Rise of New Industries.
--Harnessing Africa's Digital Potential: New Tools for a New Age.
--Reassessing Africa's Global Partnerships: Approaches for Engaging the New World Order.

Improved Economic Growth for Sub-Saharan Africa

Focus Economics posted on 18 October 2017 an analysis titled "Economic Snapshot of Sub-Saharan Africa" by Angela Bouzanis.

The author said the GDP growth rate of Sub-Sahara Africa is expected to reach 2.4 percent in 2017 and then gain steam in 2018, rising to 3.4 percent and by 2019 reaching 3.7 percent. While this improvement still leaves the Sub-Sahara African average well below recent years, the trend line is positive. The author expects the fastest growing economies in Sub-Sahara Africa in 2018 will be Cote d'Ivoire and Ethiopia at 7 percent or more. The region's poorest performers will include South Africa at 1.3 percent and Angola and Nigeria at 2.6 percent.

Agriculture Powering Africa's Economic Transformation

The Accra-based African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET) posted on 10 October 2017 a massive study titled "Africa Transformation Report 2017: Agriculture Powering Africa's Economic Transformation." The lead author was Yaw Ansu, chief economist at ACET. You can download the entire report or an overview in English and French.

The premise of the study is that Africa is blessed with many natural advantages and rising market opportunities that could be leveraged for agricultural transformation. It also grapples with the current focus in Africa on industrialization by arguing that African countries have the opportunity to pursue two tracks to industrialization--one that leverages their relative labor-abundance for labor-intensive and export-oriented light manufacturing, and another track that leverages their advantages in agriculture for globally competitive manufacturing based on agriculture.

East Africa and the Global Competitiveness Index

The World Economic Forum has just released its "The Global Competitiveness Report 2017-2018" edited by Klaus Schwab.

The report covers 137 economies and measures national competitiveness defined as the set of institutions, policies and factors that determine the level of productivity. The best scoring country in East Africa was Kenya at position 91 (up from 96 last year). Ethiopia scored 108 (up from 109 last year). Tanzania ranked 114 (up from 116 last year). Uganda was in position 115 (down from 113 last year). The study did not include any other country in the Horn of Africa.

African Economic Outlook 2017

The African Development Bank, the Development Centre of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the UN Development Programme published on 22 May 2017 "African Economic Outlook 2017: Entrepreneurship and Industrialization."

This annual massive study reports that in 2016, Africa's economic growth slowed to 2.2 percent from 3.4 percent in 2015 due to low commodity prices, weak global recovery and adverse weather conditions, which impacted agricultural production in some regions. Africa's economic growth is expected to rebound to 3.4 percent in 2017 and 4.3 percent in 2018.

Although economic headwinds experienced in the last two years appear to have altered the "Africa rising narrative," the African Development Bank believes the continent remains resilient, with non-resource dependent economies sustaining higher growth for a much longer period. With dynamic private sectors, entrepreneurial spirit and vast resources, Africa has the potential to grow even faster and more inclusively.

Ethiopia and the Fragile States Index

The Fund for Peace released its 2017 Fragile States Index and included a special commentary on Ethiopia dated 14 May 2017 and titled "Golden Era of Growth Fails to Mask Deeper Grievances in Ethiopia" by Hannah Blyth.

Ethiopia's overall Fragile States Index score has been incrementally worsening over the past decade, moving from 95.3 in 2007 to a score of 101.1 in the 2017 index. Ethiopia and Mexico were the most worsened countries over the past year.

Sub-Saharan Africa Economic Outlook (English and French)

The IMF released in May 2017 its "Regional Economic Outlook: Sub-Saharan Africa."

In 2016, growth in Sub-Saharan Africa slowed in about two-thirds of the countries in the region and is estimated to have reached just 1.5 percent. This marked the region's worst performance in more than two decades. A rebound to 2.5 percent in 2017 will be driven by one-off factors in the three largest economies--a recovery in oil production in Nigeria, higher public spending ahead of elections in Angola, and the fading of drought effects in South Africa--combined with improvements in their terms of trade. Nonetheless, the underlying regional momentum remains weak and Sub-Saharan African growth will continue to fall well short of past trends and barely exceed population growth.

The report contains sections on restoring the conditions for strong and sustainable growth, restarting Sub-Saharan Africa's growth engine, and the informal economy in Sub-Sahara Africa.

Africa-BRICS Cooperation

The UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) based in Addis Ababa has just released a major study titled "Africa-BRICS Cooperation: Implications for Growth, Employment and Structural Transformation in Africa."  It looks at the role and implications for Africa of trade, investment, and aid.  It ends with a series of recommendations.

The South African Foreign Policy Initiative (SAFPI) on 28 March 2013 summarized the UNECA report.