Next year, in sub-Saharan Africa, twenty-four countries will see their per capita income rise faster than the rest of the world, and another twenty-one countries, on the contrary, should have lower per capita growth than the world average.
This is reflected in the latest report of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on economic prospects in sub-Saharan Africa, presented Monday, October 28, in Abidjan. The IMF expects a growth of 3.6% in 2020 in this zone, compared to 3.2% in 2019. In this report entitled Dealing with Uncertainty, the IMF lists the risks of deterioration that weigh on growth as macroeconomic, security, climate or health threats.
For the IMF, the demographic pressure is not part of the risks of deterioration of growth in the short term, but in the long term yes. For the Fund, growth per capita needs to be increased and more inclusive. And to put the social results in the long term, it will be necessary, in ten years, to create many more jobs, especially in the oil countries.
« By 2030, the region will need to create about 20 million jobs a year. It’s about doubling the number of job creations. This is a huge task but it is a challenge that must be met to ensure macroeconomic stability as well as social cohesion, « said Papa Ndiaye, the author of the report.
Youth training
Jean-Luc Ménudier, Executive Director of Uniwax, represented the private sector at the presentation of the IMF report. « We have a huge deficit in training, » he says. If we want to train the human capital that will realize our ambitions of the future, we must absolutely accelerate the development of our youth formations, retain them, they stop trying to cross the Mediterranean to seek a better world on the outside taking enormous risks and creating the human capital of the future. It is increasingly difficult for companies, particularly in Côte d’Ivoire, today, to find qualified personnel. To make these developments with high technologies, etc., we are forced to recruit in the diaspora but it has its limits. There are some who do not want to come back. We have more and more trouble finding. So we have to do something in these areas, « he said.
To counter the threats in the shorter term, the IMF calls for strengthening the resilience of Sub-Saharan African countries, that is to say, mobilize revenues, including tax revenue, improve public finances to finance development needs and diversify the economy to be less vulnerable to shocks.
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