Africa remains resilient and is rising!

Last week was Africa’s day and the African Development Bank released the African Economic Outlook 2023. In summary, African economies remain resilient, expected to grow from 3.8% in 2022 to the 4% range by 2023 and even stronger by 2024.

Focusing on expected growth across the regions, below are five key points:

• East African countries are leading the growth pack, with seven of them expected to grow at/ above 5%. This is facilitated by its diversified production structure and decline in commodity prices (They are commodity importers).
• Following is North Africa, with projected growth of 4.6% in 2023. This is largely driven by Morocco and Libya’s strong recoveries.
• West Africa is expected to rise slightly from 3.8% in 2022 to 3.9% in 2023. Interestingly, the growth is facilitated by smaller countries in the region — eight expected to grow at/ above 5%.
• Central Africa will decline slightly from 5% in 2022 to 4.9% in 2023. This is driven by the downward trends in commodity prices.
• Lastly, Southern Africa will decelerate significantly from 2.7% in 2022 to 1.6% in 2023. South Africa, the region’s largest economy continues to struggle with power outages and high interest rates. Hopefully, with the right policies, the region will pick back to 2022 level in 2024.

This outlook is subject to some downside risks including subdued global growth, global tightening financial conditions, significant losses due to extreme weather and global chain disruptions.

However, with continuous resilience and diminished risks, the continent could sustain this growth at 4.3% in 2024. Indeed, Africa is rising! We need to translate the growth numbers to sustainable development covering human capital development.

Are you excited about the continent’s growth? What should the continent be doing to sustain and translate it to development?