Re-Visiting the Macroeconomic Determinants of Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa Amidst Covid-19

Growth strategies play crucial roles in a region undergoing economic transformation that involves new policy formulation and implementation toward sustainable growth and development. In overall, the growth of any economy promotes development when the proceeds from it are appropriately channeled to developmental policies, and this in overall, increase well-being of the people. Therefore, this study revisits the macroeconomic determinants of economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa amidst the coronavirus, 2019, from 1990 to 2023. Using the pooled mean estimation framework introduced by Pesaran et al. (2001) in an autoregressive distributive lag and the Dumitrescu-Hurlin Granger causality, findings show that foreign direct investment, trade openness, human capital, and population promote economic growth in SSA countries. Also, there is a bi-directional relationship between FDI and GDP, SCH and GDP, POP and GDP, OPEN and FDI, SCH and FDI, POP and FDI, POP and OPEN. However, there is a uni-directional relationship between OPEN and GDP, and SCH and OPEN. Then, the study recommends that governments of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries should promote policies that encourage foreign direct investment and trade openness. Promoting policies to encourage foreign direct investment allows more job opportunities in the host country, create opportunity of exchange of technical know-how, and so on. Also, make provisions for skill acquisitions through vocational training, workshops, and training of the available labour force in the region.