What next for Africa?

Debt: What next for Africa - at Moneyweek.co.uk - the best of the week's international financial media.

The principle of debt relief for poor countries has been accepted by all major Western governments. But the poverty is still with us, says Simon Nixon

How poor is AfricaIn 2003, the United Nations (UN) spoke of the previous ten years being a lost decade' for Africa. Much of sub-Saharan Africa has actually got poorer in recent years. Africa's share of world exports fell from about 6% in 1980 to 2%in 2002 and its share of world imports fell from 4.6% to 2.1%. In 2000, the UN held the Millennium Summit, at which world leaders agreed to aim to halve the incidence of poverty in Africa by 2015, which meant raising per capita consumption to a dollar per day. To reach that level, its GDP would have to grow on average by 8% a year over the period. But according to the IMF, next year growth will be 5.8%.

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