38 Middle East & Africa The EconomistAugust 1st 2020
1G
orée island, a former slave-trading
hub, is so close to Dakar, Senegal’s capi-
tal, that hundreds of amateurs swim out to
it every year. Yet some days it disappears
from sight, lost in a haze of pollution and
dust. In the Nigerian city of Port Harcourt,
part of its oil-producing region, black soot
settles on everything. Tiny particles clog
lungs and invade the bloodstream.
Some 4.2m people die prematurely ev-
ery year from dirty outdoor air, says the
World Health Organisation (who). The
World Bank reckons the worldwide costs of
deaths from air pollution run to $5trn a
year. Africa is plainly affected, but it is hard
to know how badly. Outdoor pollution in
the continent is rarely measured.
Fetid rubbish, old cars and filthy fac-
tories fill Africa’s air with smoke, rarely
hindered by environmental standards or
enforcement. Take Nigeria, where inter-
national commodity traders exploit weak
regulations by importing fuel that is vastly
more toxic than the stuff found in Europe,
and even dirtier than fuel produced by
bush refineries in the Niger Delta, says a
study by the Stakeholder Democracy Net-
work, a pressure group. Rana Roy of the
oecd, a club of mainly rich countries, reck-
ons air pollution of all types causes more
premature deaths in Africa than dirty wa-
ter, poor sanitation or the malnutrition of
children. The who says the Nigerian city of
Onitsha is the most polluted in the world.
Yet the who reckons that only 0.5% of
African towns and cities have accessible
air-quality data (Dakar is one of them). That
would be unthinkable in the West (see
map). Children are particularly at risk. In
Europe and North America 72% of children
live within 50km of an air-monitoring sta-
tion versus only 6% of African children.
Even in African cities that do track air qual-
ity, the data are patchy. “Most of the equip-
ment in use is obsolete,” says Kofi Amegah
of the University of Cape Coast in Ghana.
South Africa is an exception. There, as
in much of the West, air-quality data are
constantly and publicly available, so com-
muters and asthmatics can avoid the worst
smog. Researchers can estimate the dam-
age both to people’s health and the econ-
omy with reasonable accuracy.
Yet almost everywhere else in Africa,
what little information is collected is rarely
made public. Some governments think
people should pay for it to help cover costs.
That is ludicrous, thinks Mr Amegah, sincedata collection is anyway paid for by tax-
payers and is meant to help improve public
health. Many governments are simply wor-
ried that better data will lead to more criti-
cism of them, says Dan Westervelt of Co-
lumbia University.
Information sometimes gets out any-
way. American embassies in six African
capitals have first-rate instruments and
publish findings every day. In Beijing in
2008 the American embassy began releas-
ing air-pollution data. A diplomatic spat
ensued, but campaigners were able to chal-
lenge official claims, leading to new stan-
dards, more testing—and cleaner air.
African activists are following suit, buy-
ing cheap air sensors. The most basic cost
$25 apiece, though they are less accurate
than high-grade ones. Local data matter. A
campaign to cut pollution from factories in
Syokimau, a Nairobi suburb, succeeded
thanks to four cheap sensors provided by
Code for Africa, a network for open-data ac-
tivists. It hopes to install 3,000 more sen-
sors in African cities.^7The air is polluted, but it is hard to
know how badlyPollution in AfricaA smouldering sky
Sources:UN;aqicn.orgAir-monitoring
stations, 2020Onitsha
Port Harcourt
Niger DeltaDakar GHANANIGERIAKENYASOUTH AFRICASENEGALNairobiSmokin’A
lthough it israrely shy about spend-
ing other people’s money, the African
National Congress (anc), South Africa’s
ruling party, has long been wary of the imf.
After Nelson Mandela came to power in
1994 the fund practically begged to help his
new government. Mandela eventually saw
the potential benefits of a cheap loan. But
the ancrejected the offer.
Opposition to the imfhas remained a
shibboleth of the party. Yet on July 27th
South Africa said it had agreed to a $4.3bn
loan from the imf. The deal signed by
South Africa, one of 78 countries to have re-
ceived covid-19-related help, is not a stan-
dard imfprogramme and thus does not
have stringent conditions. But the need for
it nevertheless reflects the extent of the
country’s underlying economic problems.
For some of the anc’s self-styled com-
rades the worry about the imfhas perhaps
been that it would make it harder for them
to loot state coffers. For others, including
Thabo Mbeki, Mandela’s successor, an imf
loan would have meant an intolerable vio-
lation of sovereignty.
Despite his doubts about the imf, Mr
Mbeki pursued macroeconomic policies so
orthodox that a rabbi might have blessed
them. Under Trevor Manuel, finance min-
ister from 1996 to 2009, and Tito Mboweni,
governor of the reserve bank from 1999 to
2009, South Africa closed its budget deficit
and tamed inflation, which had averaged
14% in the 1980s. Though the anc’s patron-
age machine kept whirring, gdpgrew by
more than 5% a year from 2005 to 2007.
Then came Jacob Zuma. Under his pres-
idency corruption thrived and public
spending ballooned. The negative effects
of rigid labour markets and affirmative ac-
tion intensified. Real gdpper person has
shrunk every year since 2015. The ratio of
public debt to gdprose from 26% in 2008 to
56% in 2018. As early as 2015, writers such
as R.W. Johnson warned that South Africa
was heading for a bail-out.
This condition-light deal is not quite
the Rubicon-crossing that some envisaged.
But it is a toe in the water. In a letter to the
fund, Mr Mboweni, who in 2018 returned to
the government as finance minister, and
Lesetja Kganyago, the reserve bank’s cur-
rent governor, made several pledges, pri-
marily relating to public finances.
They promised to cut the share of
spending that goes on public-sector wages
and to speed up structural reforms, for ex-JOHANNESBURG
South Africa borrows from the imffor
the first time since apartheidSouth Africa and the IMFFund facts