Africa: Can a World Already in Despair Save Africa?

analysis

Thanks to an invisible but deadly enemy, the global economy is likely to shrink by 1.8% this year, the United States economy by 6.2% and Europe by 9%, according to Goldman Sachs. China will grow by a meagre 3% (versus 6.1% in 2019). The South African economy is expected to contract by 4% and the sub-Saharan economy as a whole to grow by a miserly 1.5%.

As economist Ricardo Hausmann of Harvard Kennedy School puts it, for African and other developing countries especially, 'When it rain, it pours.' They have been hit by simultaneous shocks - COVID-19 itself; a collapse in access to foreign income through a collapse in commodity prices, tourism and probably in remittances; and a collapse in access to capital markets.

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