The African continent continues to suffer from persistent difficulties, especially in terms of food, against the background of the war in Ukraine, estimated the French Development Agency (AFD) on Thursday January 12, despite considering the economic shock related to the Covid-19 Pandemic.
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“The Covid shock is now digested,” said Thomas Mélonio, research director of the AFD, in the preamble to the presentation of a book presenting the French institution’s perspectives on the continent this year. GDP per capita this year will thus surpass 2019 levels, allowing Africa to join geographic areas of the world whose national wealth has returned to pre-pandemic levels.
This good news hides a difficult economic situation exposed to the vagaries of the international situation a few weeks before the first anniversary of the war in Ukraine. This war was marked by a surge in grain prices shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which accounted for 30% of the world wheat supply before the conflict.
After hitting historic highs in March, global food prices settled down towards the end of the year, particularly after Ukraine’s resumption of wheat exports to the Black Sea.
conflicts and severe drought
In this context, Africa has “escaped the mass famines feared by the United Nations in 2022,” said Bio Goura Soulé, an expert at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), during the AFD conference. On the other hand, the persistently rising prices for fertilizers could still weigh on agricultural production this year, Thomas Mélonio warned.
In a broader sense, the situation in terms of food security is far from stable, estimated Benoit Faivre-Dupaigre, AFD research officer, recalling that most of the countries in the world in need of food aid are in Africa.
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“This is not solely due to food prices, but to the overall situation of conflicts and crises in various areas of Africa,” he said, particularly in the Sahel and in the east of the continent, which was hit by severe drought.
In its latest October economic forecast for sub-Saharan Africa, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said it expects growth of 3.7% in 2023 after 3.6% in 2022.