New reports are saying that the Sub-Saharan African (SSA) regional economy is finally making a comeback after a long and intense recession. Given that the region is by far one of the poorest in the world, it’s good to see that they are making positive growth. This growth is a result of greater political stability in East Africa, boosting growing… Read more »
People in sub-Saharan Africa are now living longer than ever before. A child born in the region today is expected to live up to 64 years on average. This is a remarkable increase of 11 years since the year 2000, when life expectancy at birth was only 53 years in sub-Saharan Africa. Life expectancy at birth is the average number of… Read more »
International conversations on trade are currently dominated by threats of trade wars, but the African continent is moving in the opposite direction. After two years of negotiations, representatives of a large number of African countries signed the African Continental Free Trade Agreement in Kigali on 21 March 2018 at an extraordinary African Union Summit. Is this agreement an attempt to… Read more »
The extraordinary rise of Ethiopia as a destination and a transfer hub for long-haul travel to Sub-Saharan Africa has been revealed in the latest findings from ForwardKeys which predicts future travel patterns by analyzing 17 million flight booking transactions a day. The data shows that Addis Ababa (Ethiopia’s capital) has grown its volume of international transfer passengers to Sub-Saharan Africa,… Read more »
London-based risk and compliance consultancy Control Risks has released the November edition of its Africa Risk Reward Index, and predicts increased returns on investment for businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in the near future, driven by economic growth and increasing political stability. Control Risks’ periodic Risk Reward indices for Africa provide an overview of the potential returns on investment in… Read more »
The region of Sub-Saharan Africa is by far the poorest in the world. Since decolonization in the 1940s, many of the countries have had negative GDP growth. Half of the countries in Africa are below the poverty line. Because these economies are in ruins, they are more than welcome to foreign investment. China has recently began investing into several African… Read more »
ast week, the International Monetary Fund published its biannual Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa, forecasting that growth is on track to improve from 2.7 percent in 2017 to 3.1 percent in 2018. The report presents this news with cautious optimism and cites potential risks in the near future. In particular, the global economy is entering a period of unusually elevated… Read more »
[NAIROB] Men in Kenya’s informal urban settlements are forcing women to stop using contraceptives, resulting in clandestine family planning methods that include the risk of dangerous back street abortions, a study reveals. Almost half of all abortions are unsafe, according to the WHO, with the biggest proportion of dangerous abortions happening in Africa. Societal pressure in the region is frequently against using… Read more »
Newswise — Women in Ethiopia, Nigeria and Uganda are often pressured by family and through societal expectations to have more children, but commonly resort to covert or indirect means of contraception to maintain some reproductive autonomy. This is a central finding from a cross-country study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The findings will… Read more »
China’s increased lending to governments in sub-Saharan Africa has the potential to support economic growth, but also amplifies credit risks for countries with high debt, ratings agency Moody’s has said. “Unless African investment financed by Chinese loans generates substantial economic gains that boost debt servicing capacity of sub-Saharan African governments, the credit implications of such lending include higher debt burdens,… Read more »