Report on Economic and Social Conditions in West Africa in 2010 and Outlook for 2011

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) economies remain vulnerable and the sustainability of relatively strong growth rates is uncertain given the intensifying fiscal woes in the United States of America, Europe and Japan. During the 2007 and 2008 economic crises, the SSA countries were able to use their heightened economy activity led by booming primary sector (minerals and oil), and improved political and economic governance to consolidate their fiscal positions by reducing deficits and debts to sustainable levels. The countries introduced economic reforms and new progressive economic policies, and ushered in an economic environment that received the positive support of development partners who responded on selective basis by increasing aid flows and introducing debt relief. These measures further spurred economy activity. However, the food and energy price shocks which preceded the global financial crisis weakened the external position of net importers of these commodities, fuelled inflation, and hampered the economies’ growth potential. They also made more difficult the dual task of further consolidating macroeconomic gains, on the one hand, and increasing social spending to fight poverty, on the other.

The SSA region with a population of slightly more than 840 million inhabitants in 2009 spread across 47 countries faces immense development challenges. For example, unlike other regions, the number of people living below the poverty line continues to increase, while thousands, mostly children, die daily from avoidable or controllable diseases, and AIDS and malaria continue to ravage the region. The situation in West Africa mirrors the conditions in the rest of SSA plagued by high levels poverty, youth unemployment rates, infant mortality and malnutrition in most countries. West Africa extends from the coastal countries lying north of the Gulf of Guinea to Senegal, and includes the Sahelian hinterland. The fifteen member States of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) are: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. ECOWAS presents the widest linguistic and geographical diversity, as well as the richest variety of natural resources when compared with other sub-regions of the continent. In 2008, the population of the fifteen ECOWAS member States totaled 281½ million inhabitants, with 52% of the sub-region’s population living in Nigeria. The population presents a human resource base which the sub-region should utilize for socio-economic development.