Three takeaways from the AfDB’s 2022 Africa Economic Outlook

6 June 2022

The 2022 African Economic Outlook (AEO), the African Development Bank’s flagship publication released at the midpoint of last week’s Annual Meetings in Accra, can be summarised in six words: Growth, down. Inflation, up. Debt, stable.

Certainly, the headline messages make for grim reading. Africa has suffered terribly from the twin crises of Covid-19 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while the escalating impacts of climate change – felt sooner and harder in Africa than anywhere else – chip constantly away at the continent’s productive capacity.

The year 2020 saw Africa slip into its first continental recession in over half a decade, and governments, needing to rapidly expand support to their ailing economies, were forced to incur massive amounts of debt that have stabilised, on average, at above 70% of GDP. 

Source: African Business