An economic growth not inclusive enough
The share of the population living in extreme poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa has reduced slightly from 44 percent in the early 2000s to 40.8 percent in 2015. However, the 2019 global coronavirus pandemic-related economic crisis has setback progress on extreme poverty alleviation in the region. This blog aims to reflect on the progress of the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Sub-Saharan Africa after eight years of launch in 2015.
The 2021 World Bank data indicates that the number of people living below the international poverty line (less than 1.9 U.S. dollars a day) stands at 49.6 percent in 2021 in sub-Saharan Africa, up from 40.8 percent in 2015. It increased from 436 million in 2018 to 478 million people in 2021. In comparison with other regions, the number reduced from 25 million to 20 million people in East Asia and Pacific; 23 million to 26 million in Latin America and the Caribbean; and 27 million to 34 million in Middle East and North Africa. There was no change in Europe and Central Asia (remained at 5 million since 2018). The Brookings Institute report in 2018 also indicated that out of the world’s 28 poorest countries, 27 of them, all with poverty rates above 30 percent, are in sub-Saharan Africa.
In spite of the slow progress in poverty reduction in the region and considering that actual poverty in Africa is typically lower than estimates (Beegle et al., 2016), it is clear that the pandemic-related job losses and deprivation has hit the already-poor and vulnerable people in sub-Saharan Africa. There is also considerable heterogeneity in the distribution of poverty among countries in the region. In more than six countries in sub-Saharan Africa including Congo, Eritrea, and Madagascar for instance, the rate of poverty is greater than 60 percent (World Bank, 2020). Countries where their poverty rates below 30 percent are Ghana, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Namibia, Tanzania, and Uganda. Only Botswana, South Africa, Tunisia, and Morocco are the countries with poverty rate below 20 percent. The only country in Africa where the poverty rate below 10 percent in 2022 is Mauritius. This indicates that slow progress is also seen at the country level. Therefore, understanding the problems of the poor and their needs through specific policy frameworks for the various countries will be important in all measures targeting poverty reduction in the region.
Poverty is mainly caused by inadequate access to employment opportunities; lack of physical and capital resources such as land and financial resource; poor infrastructure development to connect rural people to urban centers; and degraded natural resources that lead to low productivity and environmental impact. In fragile and conflict-affected countries, in particular, failure to design disaster recovery programs and policies could lead to increase in poverty rates. Identifying priority areas, governments and development organizations as well as individuals and private sectors, and organizing their capacities and resources to learn from past and prepare for future threats at the regional, national and local levels could reduce the risks.
While the pandemic pushed about 40 million people into extreme poverty in Africa; the fight against poverty has been exacerbated by the recent Russia-Ukraine conflict that has led to a record high in food and oil prices in 2022. Given the nature of the African countries' economic linkages with Russia and Ukraine, the conflict has directly and indirectly impacted African countries through increasing commodity prices including food and non-food, tightening of the global financial conditions, and smaller flows of foreign financing to the African region. The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the African economic intelligence firm Concerto estimate that 30 percent of all wheat consumption in Africa and Central Asia comes from the Russian Federation and Ukraine. Egypt, the world’s top importer of wheat imported over 60 percent of wheat from Russia and Ukraine between 2016-2022. In 2021, Russia and Ukraine ranked among the top three global exporters of wheat, maize, sunflower oil, sunflower seeds, and fertilizer supplies (FAO 2022). The two countries combined supply around one-third of the world's wheat (UNCTAD 2022; Aidi 2021).
The pandemic and environmental impact coupled with the domestic and foreign political instabilities threaten the food security in Sub-Saharan Africa. The 2021 African Development Bank estimated that the regional economy was reduced by 2.1 percent. Although the outbreak of COVID-19 affects the economy of all countries; the tourism-dependent, oil-exporting, and other-resources intensive economies were the most significantly hit by the pandemic. In the East Africa region alone, apart from the pandemic, the World Bank estimates that environmental-related shocks such as drought, flood, and desert locust damaged up to US$8.5 billion of crops and exposed over 3.3 million people to emergency assistance in 2020. This leads to a rise in the number of undernourished people in Sub-Saharan Africa from 200 million in 2015 to 281.6 million in 2020, accounting for 25 percent of 811 million undernourished people worldwide (FAO 2021). The global figure of undernourished people in 2015 was 720 million. At the same time, the prevalence of chronic undernourishment in Sub-Saharan Africa raises from 20.4 percent in 2015 to 29.5 percent in 2020 (FAO 2021).
While the global projections on the proportion of people living in extreme poverty are set to fall by 2030, the aggregated economic shock is likely to raise the absolute number of people under poverty line in Sub-Saharan Africa. The 2022 UNICEF report shows that conflict and drought affect countries, child marriage has seen rising in 2022 and millions of children are out of school. Only two-thirds of children are projected to complete secondary education by 2030 in Sub-Saharan Africa whereas the rest of the world is expected to reach 90 percent. The region was also targeted to reduce the incidence of hunger, especially among women and youth to 20 percent by 2023. Given SDG 2030 is on midterm since its launch in 2015, Africa is not on track to meet some of the SDG goals such as ending hunger, ensuring access to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food to all, ending all forms of malnutrition, ensuring that all girls and boys complete free primary and secondary schooling, and access to quality and affordable education.
Since the SDG 2030 mainly targets to meet the challenges related to environmental, economic, and political crises that countries or people face as humanity, the High-Level Policy Forum (HLPF) of the United Nations Sustainable development knowledge platform regularly reviews the progress of SDGs to allow countries to plan more appropriate policies, structures, and processes as well as revise their national development goals in line with current socio-economic situations to achieve their SDGs targets. As HLPF is a voluntary and state-led review process; the participation of stockholders in the review process helps to lead the implementation of policies. The expectation is that the HLPF facilitates the sharing of experiences including success, challenges, and lessons learned to accelerate the implementation of the 2030 SDG agenda. Furthermore, identifying the implementation challenges at the country level and sharing solutions, knowledge, and best practices would coordinate and harness countries as well as business partners. Therefore, reflecting on the midterm assessment, this article points to the need for actions to speed up the progress towards achieving the SDG goals.
Areas of Action for Faster Progress
Sub-Saharan Africa has recorded sustained economic growth for the past two decades (World Bank 2018), including the 4 percent average growth rate in the region, which is almost double the global average. Furthermore, six of the top 10 fastest growing economies in the world (Ghana, Ethiopia, Cote d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Senegal, and Tanzania) are in Africa. In 2018 these countries' economies grew at about 7 percent or more. This impressive growth, however, presents a puzzling paradox, particularly in employment generation or livelihood opportunities for 70 percent of the young people under the age of 30 in Sub-Saharan Africa, which is key for sustainable development in the region. In terms of human capital, social development, and poverty reduction, the region is also at a lower rank in 2022. This suggests lack of inclusive growth is particularly evident. Therefore, governments' preparedness for growth and development-oriented policy packages that encourage sustained investments and job creation to enhance both the regional and country’s competitiveness has parament importance. At the same time, collaboration with development partners for innovative finance and facilitating private sectors for green and inclusive economic recovery from the pandemic as well as domestic and external shocks helps for faster and sustained growth. A more inclusive and pro-poor development strategy includes:
Building resilience to economic shocks
Economic shocks including supply shocks are associated with the pandemic, domestic and foreign political crises, and environmental and institutional factors. Thus, (i) by identifying key priority areas, investing in labor-intensive sectors complemented by policies that enable the bottom 40 percent of the population to fully participate in and benefit from the growth process (ii) strategies to build resilience through programs that could support basic needs like food, shelter, and healthcare through social safety net programs to the different segments of the population (rural vs urban). This could be through unconditional cash transfer that is designed to provide regular and predictable support to the poor and vulnerable people. This kind of development program also helps to keep girls in school, reduced unwanted teen pregnancies and decreases HIV transmission by as much as two-thirds (World Bank, 2015; Garcia and Moore, 2012). Moreover, such kinds of social protection programs that end up advancing other development goals such as the reduction of poverty, education, health, and gender equality have a multiplier effect benefits. (iii) Addressing the social and economic inequalities, building strong institutions, and improving the quality and management of natural resources such as land and water would be among the areas that governments take urgent actions for faster recovery and growth.
Invest in human capital development
Growth starts with an educated society. Achieving inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all (the 4th SDG goal) needs more investment in education. Besides increasing the enrollment rate and access to school, improving the efficiency and investment in early childhood skills development as well as balancing with the tertiary school are essential. This is because poor learning outcomes start early in life (e.g. high stunting) a compound with low schooling quality that can translate into major gaps in both foundational (cognitive, socio-emotional) and technical skills as adults. Between 2015 to 2018, governments in Sub-Saharan Africa invested about 15 to 20 percent of total public spending on education, nearly 5 percent of their GDP (World Bank, 2017). The World Bank estimate shows that the gender gap in primary education completion has closed— 67.4 percent of females compared to 70.2 percent of males in the region are enrolled in school in 2019. To this effect, prioritizing universal foundational skills would be an innovative way to increase competency [improve human/skill development/competitiveness], the World Bank 2018 “Africa’s Pulse” report indicated this. While the challenge related to the pandemic decline in the average spending on education from 5 to 3.35 percent of the GDP in 2020 in Sub-Saharan Africa (World Bank, 2020), however, using this as an opportunity to invest in an innovative platform to deliver education through digital technology could level up the playing field.
Increasing youth and women's contribution
In 2013, the African Union adopted Agenda 2063, “The Africa we want” which is driven by Africans. Agenda 2063 have 20 goals with 174 targets whereas SDG 2030 includes 17 goals and 169 corresponding targets. Both agendas have a common goal— a world free from hunger and poverty. They also target to increase the national annual growth rate of the economy by 7 percent. As part of agenda 2063, the African Union member states agreed to improve security at ports and facilitate trade through the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). The AfCFTA is the largest free trade area in the world in terms of participating countries (54 of 55 African countries) since the formation of the World Trade Organization. To reap the full benefit of the AfCFTA, tapping the young people and women into the productive sectors and jobs is more valuable. This requires investing more in labor-intensive industrial sectors including manufacturing and agribusiness underpinned by value addition to commodities to ensure equitable and sustainable job opportunities for women and youth. Furthermore, facilitation to improve the institutional landscape for the implementation and effectiveness of the African Continental Free Trade Area such as cross-border investment like railways or protecting intellectual property. The regional and continental integration as well as creating a population of empowered women and youth. Based on the size of the AfCFTA trade, creating a single market is expected to bring 30 million people out of poverty in the region and raise the income of 68 million Africans who live on less than US$5.5 per day.
Invest in infrastructure development
Infrastructure is one of the three pillars of growth and development (education, health, and road) in any region or country. Studies on infrastructure-related outcomes such as access to the road for the market, clean drinking water, and affordable energy, reducing violent deaths, ensuring peace and justice, and building strong institutions are lower. Experts from the World Bank Blimpo et al (2018) estimates that electricity access in Sub-Saharan Africa ranges from less than 10 percent in fragile countries to 22 percent among rural households to 72 percent among urban households. Regardless of the variation in electricity access, the overall access to electricity in the region is 42 percent on average. Therefore, addressing the demand and affordability of energy access; promoting productive use of electrification including investments in renewable energy such as solar and hydroelectric power; prioritizing the reliability and coordinating with other sectors to take advantage of complementarily and providing standardized inputs to productive economic activities are the areas that required more infrastructure investments to achieve SDG goal 6. Investing in the road, energy, and digital technologies to connect cities, business enterprises, and communities could enhance regional integration and ensure the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area where Agenda 2063 of the Africa Union set its own development vision.
Overall, in a region like Sub-Saharan Africa which comprises 55 different countries each with its own culture, complex geographical structure, and political will; growth and development as well as achieving all the SDGs targets may be challenging unless a redouble efforts to strengthen the macroeconomic policies frameworks and quality of policies, on the one hand, and government have an explicitly country-specific explicitly poverty reduction programs as an important policy object in their development agenda.
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