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Ph/DR: Hanan Morsy, Deputy Executive Secretary of ECA
While the world was still battling the COVID-19 pandemic, war in Ukraine broke out in early 2022. The effects of both shocks were exacerbated by the higher frequency and intensity of natural disasters. Deputy Executive Secretary and Chief Economist of the Economic Commission for Africa, Hanan Morsy, said the three overlapping crises have pushed more Africans into extreme poverty and led to increased inequalities and vulnerabilities. on the continent.
Hanan Morsy told the fifty-fifth session of the ECA Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development in Addis Ababa that there are significant levels of poverty and inequality in Africa even before the recent global crises, but now poverty has deepened and inequality has intensified.
“Today, 546 million people still live in poverty, an increase of 74% since 1990,” Morsy said. “Global shocks have a domino effect on the poor in Africa through inflation which in 2022 stood at 12.3%, well above the global average of 6.7%.
African countries with the highest levels of poverty
ECA estimates that African households spend up to 40% of their income on food, and the effects of the global crises have hit Africa’s poorest households hardest. A staggering 310 million Africans experienced some form of food insecurity and 6 million of them faced extreme hunger in 2022.
According to recent research, the 10 African countries with the highest levels of poverty in Africa are Burundi, Somalia, Madagascar, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Malawi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea-Bissau , Mozambique and Zambia, with rates between 60% and 82% of the population.
The burden of import dependency, climate change and rising debt stress
The Commissioner for Trade and Industry of the African Union Commission, Albert M. Muchanga, told the conference of African ministers of finance, planning and economic development that although Africa is the most rich in the world in terms of natural endowments, we are the poorest.
Africa’s dependence on imports makes the continent vulnerable to commodity price shocks. In 2021, 39 African countries were net food importers. Moreover, in 2021, Africa only exported $5.7 billion worth of refined petroleum products but imported more than $44 billion worth.
“Getting out of low levels of income and wealth is made all the more difficult by the threat of climate change, as evidenced by the recent floods in Madagascar, Malawi and Mozambique,” Muchanga stressed, noting that “there must be add to that the debt crisis which is looming and which could call into question all the growth gains of the last 23 years”.
Experts and ministers attending the conference noted that African countries continue to face declining incomes, rising debt and shrinking fiscal space.
In 2022, the public debt to GDP ratio in Africa was 64.5%, which is significantly higher than the pre-pandemic figure of 2019 which was 57.1%.
The two-day Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development was organized under the theme, “Fostering Recovery and Transformation in Africa to Reduce Inequalities and Vulnerabilities”.
