African Development Indicators 2004

Washington DC, April 7, 2004 – This year’s edition of the World Bank publication, African Development Indicators (ADI) 2004, launched today, depicts a diverse picture of development in Africa, with several countries making remarkable progress and others lagging seriously behind. ADI 2004 presents data for more than 500 indicators of development for 53 countries.

Thirteen Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries averaged more than 5 percent growth for the period 1995-2002, but many others saw their economies contract, usually as a result of severe civil conflict and adverse weather conditions. The region’s economic growth slowed in 2002 to 2.8 percent, slightly down from 2.9 percent in 2001.

Gross national income (GNI) per head, for example, averaged $650 in 2002 for all of Africa, but stood at only $307 per head in SSA excluding South Africa. GNI ranged from under $100 per head in the Democratic Republic of Congo to over $7000 in Seychelles. Maternal mortality ranges from as low as 45 per 100,000 births in Mauritius to 2,300 per 100,000 births in Rwanda.  Half of the region’s population still live in extreme poverty and Africa still houses about three-quarters of the world’s poorest countries.

Bearing the diverse performance in mind, the publication notes that Africa urgently needs rich nations to deliver on their promises of more generous aid and wider trade opportunities to reverse the exacting cruelty of disease and poverty on the continent.

Civil wars, the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS, anemic aid, persistent low growth rates and weak commodity prices, threaten gains of the recent years in overall poverty alleviation and may jeopardize Africa’s chances of attaining some of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. 

“Net aid to Africa rose about 35 percent in 2002 compared to 2001. However, on a per capita basis, it was $27 in 2002, way below the $40 in 1992,” said Alan Harold Gelb, the World Bank’s Chief Economist for the Africa Region. On average, investment and trade trends remained steady, with a slight increase in the overall current account deficit.

Net foreign direct investment flows continued on a rising trend and reached $8.9 billion in 2002. These continued to be heavily concentrated in oil exporting countries and South Africa. The increase in official aid to the region fell far below the levels required to put a significant dent on poverty or achieve the MDGs.

Debt relief is playing a larger role in Africa’s resource picture, as total debt service relief reached $43 billion in fiscal year 2003, at a time when, as the book notes, “pro-poor expenditures had begun to increase in most of the countries”. Gross enrollment in primary schools recovered to 87 percent, up from 80 percent in 1980. The increase contributed to a drop in illiteracy rates from 47 percent in 1997 to 37 percent in 2002.

Tracking the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the book reveals that almost 30 million Africans are infected and eleven million children have been orphaned. In 2001 alone, 2.2 million AIDS-related deaths were recorded on the continent.

“ADI 2004 is intended to serve as a prime and most detailed source of data on Africa”, says Gerard Byam, Director, Operational Quality and Knowledge Services of the World Bank. The hope, he adds, is that “its wide dissemination to both African and non-African analysts and policy makers will contribute to a better understanding of Africa and to development on the continent”. It is also hoped that it will “meet the development community’s information need on Africa”.

The printed edition of the book is complemented by a CDI-ROM, which provides additional data on about 1200 indicators from 1965 to 2002. These are grouped as follows: country-at-a-glance tables, Excel-based executive summary briefings, and the electronic copy of the publication tables. Each chapter begins with a brief introduction on the nature of the data and their limitations, followed by a set of statistical tables, charts, and technical notes that define the indicators and identify their specific source.

For more information on the World Bank’s work in sub-Saharan Africa visit:  http://www.worldbank.org

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