Excluding Nigeria, Ghana, and countries in the West and Central Africa are projected to expand by 4.8% in 2024 and 5.1% in 2025-2026.
According to the October 2024 World Bank Africa Pulse Report, this will be on the back of strong private consumption and capital deepening.
The West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) – made up of only French-speaking countries – is also projected to grow at 5.7% in 2024 and 6.2% in 2025–26.
According t the report, strong growth in Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Niger, and Senegal is supporting WAEMU’s performance.
“There are some bright spots in Sub-Saharan Africa despite the tepid recovery in 2024. In 2024, the real GDP growth of 27 countries in the region is expected to accelerate, and eight of these countries are posting growth greater than 5.0%—notably, Côte d’Ivoire (6.5%), Senegal (6.1%), Uganda (6%, and Tanzania (5.4%), among others.”
“A closer look at the past 10 years merits asking whether growth prospects in Sub-Saharan Africa have improved. If so, how many countries in the region have surpassed their pre-pandemic levels of growth of real GDP per capita?”, it questioned.
Nearly 40% of the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (19 of 47) registered positive growth per capita in 2016–19 and 2022–25, and are outperforming their pre-pandemic performance.
Ten of these countries have annual average growth rates per capita that exceed 3% per year in 2022–25—notably, —notably, Benin, Kenya, Mauritania, Mauritius, Rwanda, and Senegal.
Growth Per Capita Decreasing in Ghana
Meanwhile, growth per capita in Ghana and Guinea is decelerating by more than 2 percentage points in 2022–24.
Also, growth per capita in the largest countries in the region—Nigeria and South Africa—remains below 1.0% per year, despite showing a slight improvement compared to the pre-pandemic period.
