1. The Challenge of Economic Growth in West African and WAEMU Countries
However, there are good reasons for thinking today that the significant economic growth from 4 to 6% per year observed in recent years and in most of the 12 countries studied will continue and increase, especially due to the upward trend in price increases for raw materials and agricultural products. Other factors may work in favor of this economic growth, including investments and gains in productivity, improved macroeconomic and budgetary frameworks, institutions strengthened by improved governance, an economic climate more conducive to investor confidence, the urbanization and densification of rural areas and the influx of better educated young people on labor markets. At the same time, certain phenomena may put the brakes on accelerating economic growth. Indeed, economies of the subregion’s countries remain vulnerable to internal and external forces, and their irregular growth depends on a few products, their global price variations and weather conditions. In recent years, growth has also depended on revenues from extractive industries (oil, uranium, etc.) that create few jobs and are disconnected from social issues related to access to employment for significant numbers of young people. [9] The inability of the modern sector to create a sufficient number of jobs over the past 30 years has led to a strong “informality”, social destabilization and has weakened the economies of countries in the subregion. The informal sector’s contribution to the GDP of several countries in Francophone West Africa has reached major proportions (in 1999/2000, this sector contributed 70% to the GDP of Benin, Niger and Togo, 60% of Mali’s GDP, 50% of the GDP for Burkina Faso and Senegal and 44% to Côte d’Ivoire’s GDP). [10] Moreover, on average, agriculture still employs more than half of the working population of West Africa. In its 2007–2008 report on West Africa, the OECD concluded that the informal sector has, since 1980, become “the primary source of urban employment and this will probably remain the case in the future, although modern businesses as a whole represent 80% of non-agricultural added value.” (OECD, 2008). This is significant because the majority of the population in most countries will probably be living in urban areas in the next 20 years. In this context, the question arises as to whether the anticipated strong economic growth in coming years will actually allow for rapid increases in per capita GDP of countries in the sub region.
[9] Between 2010 and 2030, there will be between 50% and 100% more arrivals on the labor market of different countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The total of these arrivals is expected to increase from 17 million in 2010 to 27 million in 2030 for all countries (Beaujeu et al., 2011). [10] OECD, 2008.
March 2012 / How Can We Capitalize on the Demographic Dividend? / © AFD - IRD
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