Poverty levels
On current trends, most of the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa will not meet any of the Millennium Development Goals. In 2002, Africa’s share of population in poverty fell slightly to 44 percent, below the 46.4 percent in 2001 but virtually the same as in 1990. Current projections are that Africa’s 2015 poverty rate will remain markedly off-target at over 38 percent. The picture on economic growth is more positive. In the region's low-income countries, per capita GDP growth reached an estimated three percent in 2004 and 2005—a marked improvement on the 1995–2004 average of about 1.7 percent.
Infrastructure From the mid- to late-1990s to 2002, the average electrification rate for the region improved to about 27 percent—a gain of five percentage points but still the lowest among regions. Only an estimated 64 percent of the population has access to safe water and 37 percent to improved sanitation. Although the number of telephone subscribers has tripled, less than five percent of households have phones. Investment Climate
According to the World Bank/IFC's Doing Business in 2006, African nations impose the most regulatory obstacles on entrepreneurs and were slower than any other region in implementing reforms to ease constraints on doing business, averaging around 0.6 reforms per country in 2004. But some countries, such as Rwanda and Nigeria, are acting to improve their business environment. Mauritius and South Africa both rank among the top 30 economies globally on the ease of doing business; Namibia is not far behind at 33rd. |
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