Enabling the Digital Revolution in Sub-Saharan Africa : What Role for Policy Reforms?
The five countries covered in this report share a number of characteristics and are facing similar challenges that justify their being monitored jointly. First, they face critical demographic issues that require immediate action to enable them to e...
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Format: | Report |
Language: | English en_US |
Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/822981493749732711/Enabling-the-digital-revolution-in-Sub-Saharan-Africa-what-role-for-policy-reforms http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26652 |
Summary: | The five countries covered in this
report share a number of characteristics and are facing
similar challenges that justify their being monitored
jointly. First, they face critical demographic issues that
require immediate action to enable them to experience a
population dividend rather than a population burden that
might foreshadow interminable political and social conflicts
in the future. Second, with the exception of Guinea, these
are landlocked, low-income Sahelian economies, heavily
reliant on the agricultural sector, their main source of
revenue and means of subsistence, with a significant
livestock sub-sector based in part on traditional pastoral
nomadism. Third, they are economically non-diversified.
These five countries rely on natural resources exploitation
industries-gold for Mali, uranium and oil for Niger, bauxite
for Guinea, diamonds for the Central African Republic, and
oil for Chad-that account for a rural portion of their
output, export income, and public revenue. This dependence
on the primary sector makes these economies highly
vulnerable to climate-related shocks and to volatility in
the price of raw materials. Fourth, each one is struggling
to overcome a legacy of political instability and violence,
exacerbated by fragile sociopolitical conditions and the
severity of regional currency tied to the euro and exerts
considerable influence on the macroeconomic policies of its
Member States. |
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