African Development Bank (AfDB) plays a key role in promoting growth, industrialisation and integration, supported by sovereign shareholders around the world. The bank has a 10-year strategy to deliver its so-called ‘High 5s’, its development priorities aimed at helping African countries grow faster and align with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. However, with inward investment flatlining over recent years, AfDB is seeing unprecedented demand for its services.
African aggregate economic growth was about 3.6% in 2017, compared with 2.2% in 2016, but with wide variations between countries. The continent’s largest economies, Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt, performed well, while output in the Republic of the Congo and Equatorial Guinea contracted sharply and had a knock-on effect on the central African region. Huge structural challenges remain: at least 50% of Africa’s youth is unemployed or underemployed, and many governments are hampered by weak current account positions.
