Key questions:
1. How have the recent global headwinds affected leading sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries?
2. With high inflation and slow growth, is Nigeria losing its economic relevance in SSA?
From power outages in South Africa to rising debt in Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana, the top economies in SSA are seriously going through it.
While much blame comes from the rise in global interest rates stemming from the Russia-Ukraine crisis, we cannot overlook the role of endemic structural deficiencies that plague these countries. Some issues are the government’s lack of commitment to reforms, corruption, poor infrastructure, and continuous focus on low-value exports.
For these reasons, the IMF revised SSA’s growth forecast downwards to 3.6% in 2023 from 3.9% in 2022. The revision also aligns with the lower global growth forecast, which fell to 2.8% from 6% in 2021 due to high inflation and interest rate hikes.
Today, we will unpack
