Macroeconomic Situation and Prospects

In the years before the global recession in 2009 most African economies had enjoyed impressive economic growth, with average annual growth in 2006-08 amounting to about 6% and gross domestic product (GDP) per capita growth to almost 4%. The African economies benefited from a combination of favourable factors, including high commodity prices and rapidly growing export volumes, generally prudent macro policies, debt relief and sustained aid and foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows. Moves towards more market-friendly economic framework conditions had also helped to foster growth. African growth would have been even higher had it not been restrained by infrastructure bottlenecks (notably in transport and energy), pervasive corruption and political instability in several regions.