Opinion
Why Africa’s growth outlook is good
However, some middle income countries in the region, including South Africa, have been more severely affected by global problems, reflecting their closer integration into the world economy.
Since the global crisis began, only emerging Asia has outpaced the growth of sub-Saharan Africa among the world’s major regions, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects a broadly similar outcome in 2012, with sub-Saharan Africa growing by about 5 ½ percent.
Despite strong adverse shocks in recent years linked to political strife, repeated droughts, and the global crisis, Kenya still fared quite well, recording robust growth rates of 5.8 percent in 2010 and 4.4 percent in 2011.
Moreover, fiscal discipline has been maintained even with strong spending pressures, public debt levels remain sustainable, financial inclusion has made remarkable progress, and recent inflationary pressures are being addressed through a tightening of monetary policy.
These developments testify not only to the resilience of Kenya’s private-sector led economy, but also that economic reforms implemented with the support of the IMF’s Extended Credit Facility have started paying real dividends.
This is a very welcome change from sub-Saharan Africa’s low growth and economic crises in the 1980s and 1990s.
Clearly, many factors lie behind this increased resilience. The region is, by and large, more stable politically; commodity prices have moved in favor of many of its exporters; and, crucially, most governments have pursued prudent economic policies and growth-supporting reforms.
