The Changing Landscape of Africa’s Growth

This paper examines the main features of real growth per capita of Sub-Saharan Africa over the past six decades, before uncovering the sources of growth—including those of growth miracles. Three distinct growth phases before the recent “lost decade” are observed. The swinging pattern of income per capita shows that the region has not converged with most benchmarks and is not resilient to shocks, although resilience has improved since the beginning of the twenty-first century. Furthermore, growth across countries in the region is heterogeneous and falls into three broad groups. Analysis of the sources of growth suggests that the region underperforms on duration during episodes of expansions/recessions, and the contribution of total factor productivity remains small, although it has improved over the past two decades. A few countries in the region, for example, Botswana, Ethiopia, and Mauritius, have sustained growth for decades, on par with the world’s best performance. These exceptional “growth miracles” are distinguished by a common set of factors that explain how such miracles start and are sustained: leadership, economic diversification, market expansion, and investment for the future.