A decade of healthy growth in Africa has put the continent on track to tackle its high poverty levels, the World Bank said on Wednesday, releasing its 2007 Africa Development Indicators (ADI).
The ADI report is based on more than 1 000 indicators covering the economy, human and private-sector development, governance, environment and aid.
”After years of stop-and-start results, many African economies appear to be growing at the fast and steady rates needed to put a dent in the region’s high poverty rate and attract global investment,” the report finds.
Growth in Africa has averaged 5,4% over the past 10 years, a rate on par with the rest of the world and described as ”encouraging” by the World Bank.
Africa’s ability to sustain and diversify the sources of that growth will determine its capacity to meet the United Nations’s Millennium Development Goals, including halving extreme poverty by 2015, the bank’s vice-president for the Africa region, Obiageli Ezekwesili, said.
Here, the ADI identifies lagging infrastructure as an ”important emerging constraint to future growth” and continued volatility in sub-Saharan Africa as having a dampening effect on investment.
Poor infrastructure is partly responsible for the high business costs incurred by African companies — up to three times those of their Indian and Chinese counterparts, the World Bank notes.
The ADI values at $22-billion the infrastructure gap in Africa, where connectivity by road, rail and air in and between most countries is grossly underdeveloped.
Growth rates vary significantly across African countries. Oil-rich Equatorial Guinea posted growth of 30,8% in 2005, while Zimbabwe’s beleaguered economy actually shrunk by 2,2%.
Africa’s economy also emerges from the report as still being heavily skewed towards commodities. Seven oil-producing countries account for more than half of all exports and about 60% of foreign direct investment into Africa.
Countries with reserves of other minerals, such as gold, platinum and copper, have also benefited from record or near-record prices for these metals, the report says.
In a more long-term development, about 18 countries described as ”resource poor” have managed to produce sustained growth rates of more than 4% over the past decade — as good as, if not better than, some oil producers — by diversifying their economies.
Kenya’s booming cut-flower business — the country’s second export after tea — is cited as an example of successful diversification, which the World Bank sees as key to avoiding ”growth collapses”.
”Africa has learned to trade more effectively with the rest of the world, to rely more on the private sector and to avoid the very serious collapses in economic growth that characterised the 1970s, 1980s and even the early 1990s,” John Page, the World Bank’s chief economist for Africa, said.
Apart from improving infrastructure, other factors the ADI cites as key to boosting and maintaining growth are improving the climate for investment, encouraging innovation and building up governing institutions.
Key statistics from the ADI
Africa’s exports rose from $182-billion in 2004 to $230-billion in 2005, a 26% rise.
Crude oil comprises more than half of total Africa’s exports.
In 2005, 60,5% of total net foreign direct investment in sub-Saharan Africa went to oil-exporting countries.
In two-thirds of countries in sub-Saharan Africa, one or two products are responsible for at least 60% of the country’s total exports.
In 2005, the richest 10% of African countries had 18,5 times the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of the poorest 10%, from 10,5 times in 1975.
South Africa and Nigeria account for 54% of the total GDP of sub-Saharan Africa.
The Seychelles has the highest gross national income per capita ($6 666) in sub-Saharan Africa; Burundi has the lowest ($105).
Nigeria has the largest population in sub-Saharan Africa with 131,5-million; the smallest is the Seychelles (900 000).
It takes 14 days to start a business in the Central African Republic, and 233 days in Guinea-Bissau.
South Africa uses the most electric power per person (4 884,8 kilowatt per hour); Ethiopia uses the least (32,7 kWph).
Burundi has the highest proportion of women in its labour force (90,5% in 2005); Sudan has the lowest (22,5%).
In Swaziland more than one in every three 15- to 49-year-olds has contracted HIV (33,4%); the rate is six in every 1 000 in Mauritania.
Mauritius has the highest life expectancy (73 years); Botswana has the lowest (35 years).
In Mauritius there are 22 children per primary school teacher; there are 72 in Ethiopia.
South Africa has 724,3 cellphones per 1 000 people; Ethiopia has the least with 5,8 per 1 000 people.
In Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Niger, two out of every 1 000 people are internet users.
In South Africa, 10,7% of its people live on less than $1 per day; 70,8% do so in Nigeria.
— Sapa-dpa