Africa’s biggest economies will struggle in 2022

By Kinley Salmon: Africa correspondent, The Economist, Dakar

AT FIRST GLANCE it appears that 2022 will finally herald some good news for sub-Saharan Africa. In contrast to most of the world, growth is expected to accelerate. This partly reflects the region’s torrid 2021. While much of the world enjoyed a vaccine-fuelled recovery from covid-19, less than 5% of Africans were fully jabbed by October. So, while in 2022 most other regions will naturally slow, Africa has lots of room to improve.

Still, for the sub-Saharan region overall, the IMF forecasts just a 0.1 percentage point increase in growth to 3.8% for 2022. This hides deep divergences. South Africa, Nigeria and Angola, which together make up about half of sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP, were in deep trouble before covid-19. Their sluggishness will continue in 2022. Those bouncing back will be relative minnows such as Rwanda and the Seychelles, which will see well above the 3.8% growth projected for the region, and medium-sized economies such as Ivory Coast and Ghana.