THE clear indications that the continent might not meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) two years to its deadline notwithstanding, a fresh World Bank report has, for the first time in a while, hauled Africa from the usual gloom pit, rating its growth rate the fastest in the world now.
According to the new report, which was made available to The Guardian Monday, the economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa (which is likely to reach over five per cent on average - in 2013-2015), is a result of "high commodity prices worldwide and strong consumer spending on the continent."
This, the latest edition of World Bank's Africa's Pulse - a twice-yearly analysis of the issues shaping Africa's economic prospects, is what is now ensuring that the region remains growing among the fastest in the world.
The report notes that in 2012, about a quarter of African countries grew at seven per cent or higher while some like Sierra Leone, Niger, Cote d'Ivoire, Liberia, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso and Rwanda are now among the fastest growing in the world.
The new report also forecasts that "medium-term growth prospects remain strong and will be supported by a gradually improving world economy, consistently high commodity prices, and more investment in regional infrastructure, trade and business growth."
Welcoming the new assessment that Africa continues to grow faster than the global average, World Bank Vice President, Makhtar Diop, called for faster progress in areas such as electricity and food in the vulnerable areas of The Sahel and the Horn of Africa. He urged more energy and agricultural productivity to raise the quality of life for Africans and reduce poverty significantly.
She said: "African countries will need to bring more electricity, nutritious food, jobs and opportunity to families and communities across the continent in order to better their lives end extreme poverty, and promote shared prosperity."
Diop urged African governments and their development partners to upgrade the continent's statistical capacity so that "citizens could better measure and monitor their development progress and analyze the reasons for its success and failure, especially in resource-rich countries and fragile states, where data gathering and analysis remained weak."
The new report also noted that new mineral discoveries now drive growth on the continent, stating that the recent discoveries of oil, natural gas, copper and other strategic minerals, and the expansion of several mines or the building of new ones in Mozambique, Niger, Sierra Leone and Zambia, alongside better political and economic governance, were sustaining solid economic growth across the continent.
Looking forward, it expected that by 2020, only four or five countries in the region would not be involved in mineral exploitation of some kind - and indication of Africa's abundant natural resources.
There is also the twin issue of consumer spending and private investment, which are going up. It disclosed that consumer spending, which accounts for over 60 per cent of Africa's GDP, remained strong in 2012.
Similarly, increased investment flows are supporting the region's growth performance, as "net private capital flows to the region increased by 3.3 per cent to a record $54.5 billion, while foreign direct investment inflows increased by 5.5 per cent in 2012 to $37.7 billion."
While exports are also driving the continent's growth, the report noted that, "the traditional destination of these goods over the last decade is changing as well. Since 2000, the overall growth of Sub-Saharan exports to emerging markets, including China, Brazil and India, and to countries in the region has surpassed that to developed markets."
Sadly, however, the report maintained that Africa's impressive growth has not reduced poverty enough even after over a decade of strong economic growth. This influenced the comment by the World Bank Chief Economist for Africa, Shanta Devarajan.
According to him, "while the broad picture emerging from the data is that Africa's economies have been expanding robustly and that poverty is coming down, the aggregate hides a great deal of diversity in performance, even among Africa's faster growers."
Even at that, the report continues on the brighter side offering more prospects of growth, much less poverty and shared prosperity based on emerging trends such as large revenues from mineral exploitation, expansion of agricultural productivity, the large-scale migration of people into towns and cities, and a demographic dividend potentially created by Africa's fast growing population of young people.
However, it emphatically warned that "given the considerable amounts of new mineral revenues coming on stream across the region, resource-rich African countries will consciously need to invest these new earnings in better health, education and jobs in order to maximize their national development prospects."
