Sub-Saharan Africa: The Route to Transformative Growth

The potential for economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is enormous given the continent’s positive demographics and the abundance of natural resources, but historically, infrastructure, political and policy challenges have stood in the way. Without question, there has been a sharp pick up in real GDP growth in the region in the 2000s compared to the previous two decades, when SSA was often seen as a development disaster. This pick-up has led to a marked change in how many investors think about SSA, and has facilitated a switch from decades of Afro-pessimism to the new wave of Afro-optimism. There is unlikely to be anyone standard "off the shelf" model of growth that a typical SSA country can follow in the coming decades. Looking at a combination of a country's demographics, political and economic heritage, plus its resource endowment, provides a base of a framework for development models. Increased economic integration could be obtained through the expansion of the service sector, revisiting manufacturing or agriculture potential, or encouraging an effective development state which supports economic growth, provides public services and reduces poverty. In the end, the real challenge for SSA policymakers is to make more fundamental decisions around infrastructure investment and improve the business operating environment, as well as to develop a much clearer and more coherent picture about where their particular country fits into the global economy in the future.