36 TheEconomistFebruary 6th 2021
1A
t first glance, sub-Saharan Africa
appears to have avoided the worst of
the pandemic. It has 14% of the world’s
population but, even as it is drenched by a
second wave, just 3% of known cases and
deaths. In 2020 its economy shrank by less
than the global average, estimates the imf.
Eleven of the 24 countries that grew at all
last year were in the region.
But try telling the finance minister of
one of those, Ghana, that African countries
have had it easy. Ken Ofori-Atta worries
that Africa is “going to lose a decade”, if
nothing is done to respond to the pandem-
ic’s economic shock. He admits to a vertigi-
nous feeling: “It’s like sailing down Niagara
Falls in an African canoe.”
Mr Ofori-Atta has reason to worry. The
rich world is expecting a rapid, vaccine-
fuelled recovery. But in sub-Saharan Africa
the damaging effects of the pandemic will
drag on, causing harm in the short, medi-
um and long term. The imfforecasts that in
2021 it will be the slowest-growing major
region. In many countries it will take sever-al years for gdpper person to get back to
where it was before covid-19. Governments
face the challenge of procuring scarce vac-
cines and, in many cases, dealing with fi-
nancing crises that threaten basic services.
All of this—as well as widespread
school closures—will leave lasting scars.
Africa has a young and fast-growing popu-
lation. The median age is 19.5; by 2035 it will
be adding more people of working age to
the global population than everywhere else
put together. A long, sluggish recovery
would make it harder for the largest-ever
generation of young Africans to find jobs,
heaping pressure on ageing leaders.
The shock of the pandemic arrived
when much of sub-Saharan Africa was al-
readyvulnerable.In 2014 a commoditiessupercycle driven by Chinese demand for
oil, metals and minerals came to an end. In
most African countries commodities ac-
count for at least 80% of goods exports, so
lower prices hurt. From 2000 to 2014 sub-
Saharan Africa’s gdpwas expanding almost
twice as fast as its population. But since
then, gdpper head has fallen.
There are big exceptions. Countries that
depend less on mining or pumping oil,
such as Benin, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Kenya
and Senegal, have been among the fastest-
growing economies in the world. “But the
rest had not recovered from the commod-
ities shock when covid hit,” says Albert
Zeufack of the World Bank. Since many gov-
ernments kept spending and borrowing,
they had higher debts than they did before
the global financial crisis.
When covid-19 spread across the world,
African countries felt a triple whammy.
Global demand plunged. Trade slowed. Tra-
vel and tourism, which are huge generators
of jobs and hard currency in several African
countries, collapsed. Lockdowns choked
domestic commerce.
Having a young population has some-
what protected the continent from the vi-
rus. Officially fewer Africans have died of it
than Americans or Europeans. The true
scale, however, is hard to gauge. In South
Africa, one of a few African countries that
track whether more people are dying than
would be expected, there have been 132,000
“excess deaths” since May—a higher rateAfrica and covid-19At the end of the line
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