Stress-Testing Africa's Recent Growth and Poverty Performance
After an impressive acceleration in growth and poverty reduction since the mid-1990s, many African countries continue to register robust growth in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Will this growth persist, given the tepid recovery in d...
Main Authors: | , , , , |
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Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
Language: | English en_US |
Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2013
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2013/06/17935395/stress-testing-africas-recent-growth-poverty-performance http://hdl.handle.net/10986/15876 |
Summary: | After an impressive acceleration in
growth and poverty reduction since the mid-1990s, many
African countries continue to register robust growth in the
aftermath of the global financial crisis. Will this growth
persist, given the tepid recovery in developed countries,
numerous weather shocks, and civil conflicts in Africa? This
paper "stress tests" African economies. The
findings indicate that Africa's long-term growth is
fairly impervious to a prolonged recession in high-income
countries. Growth is, however, much more sensitive to a
disruption of capital flows to the region, and to internal
shocks, such as civil conflict and drought, even if the
latter follow historical patterns. The broad policy
implication is that with proper domestic production
conditions African countries can sustain robust long-term
growth. Because of the economic dominance of the agriculture
sector and the share of food in household budgets, countries
will need to increase the resilience of agriculture and
protect it from unfavorable climate change impacts, such as
drought. As in the past, civil conflicts and violence will
pose by far the greatest threat to Africa's performance. |
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