Global competitiveness: Sub-Saharan Africa still lags behind
The latest World Economic Forum Global Competitive Index finds Sub-Saharan Africa to be the poorest performing region globally
The latest World Economic Forum Global Competitive Index (GCI) finds Sub-Saharan Africa to be the poorest performing region globally. The only apparent bright spot is Mauritius, among the top 50 countries in the world. Despite Sub-Saharan Africa’s poor performance relative to regional peers, the continent is home to several countries that have achieved results above the global average on key indicators. Numbers and rankings can be misleading, and these better-than-expected scores suggest that straight-line projections and simplistic rise-and-fall economics undermine important details relevant to the basic understanding of such a vast and diversified continent. The GCI has ranked countries since 2005. The 2018 index is adjusted to account for the impact of technological advances and disruption in the fourth industrial revolution (4IR). To reflect the true drivers of productivity and competitiveness in the 4IR era, the GCI introduces several new indicators. Of 98 indicators used, 64 a...
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