Africa's development indicators 2007: Spreading and sustaining growth

Towards the end of last year, the World Bank released the 2007 Africa Development Indicators report exploring the patterns of growth in sub-Saharan Africa over the past three decades. It finds that the volatility of growth has been greater than in any other region. Volatility has dampened expectations and investments-and has obscured some periods of good performance for some countries. The report shows that pickups in growth were seldom sustained, hence, Africa’s flat economic performance over this period. The challenge for economic policymakers in Africa, is how best to sustain the pickups in growth. The report shows that avoiding economic declines is as important as promoting growth.