EDITORIAL: A clear-eyed view of Africa
African leaders now recognise, if they did not before, the frailty of growth, the necessity to diversify their economies and the need to maximise growth opportunities
The African version of the World Economic Forum opens today in Durban at a sobering time for sub-Saharan Africa. Continental economic growth tumbled in 2016 to the lowest point in more than a decade. Not only that, growth declined from really extraordinary levels in 2007, when it ran at a continental average of 7.4%, according to formal IMF figures. What an extraordinary reversal of fortunes. Gone are the days when African countries constituted the majority of the 10 fastest-growing economies in the world. For a moment it seemed as if grand solutions to Africa’s problems were realistically in sight within a generation. Now that ideal seems like a cruel chimera. The first point to make in response to the underlying pessimism bedevilling African development is that the hope Africa could defy the economic cycle was a delusion in the first place. There is now a slightly more clear-eyed view of African economic growth — past, present and future. African leaders knew at the time of the bo...
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