A few of the countries on the top 10 list may have changed but the IMF, World Bank and other institutions all expect above global average GDP growth.

The top performers will be South Sudan (8.2%), Rwanda (8.1%) Côte d’Ivoire (7.3%), Ethiopia (7.2%), Senegal (6.8%), Benin (6.7%) and Uganda (6.2%) along with Kenya, Mozambique, Niger and Burkina Faso all expecting 6% growth.

While these countries help push up Africa’s overall average economic growth rate forecast to 3.8% (or 3.6% for Sub Saharan Africa), these averages are weighed down closer to the global average (3.4%) by the two largest economies, Nigeria (2.5%) and South Africa (1.1%).

Nigeria’s outlook has improved after a strong end to 2019, but most economic watchers believe it needs to grow much faster to pull large chunks of its 200-million strong population out of poverty. Economic reform has been slower than expected since February 2019’s presidential election. South Africa’s meager growth rates are exacerbated by its ongoing electricity crisis and overall political stasis. Its leaders will likely spend part of the year dreading an inevitable debt downgrade.

Since 2020 is seen as the start of a new decade, Brookings Institution’s annual Foresight Africa report looked at the average economic growth forecasts for the next five years till 2024. This predicts Senegal (8.3%), Rwanda (7.9%), Niger (7.3%), Uganda  (7.2%) and Mozambique (6.9%) as the five fastest growing over that period.

Source: qz.com