Nigeria – Page 2

Africa Pausing

IMFBlog2019-03-27T09:06:13-04:00May 31, 2016|

Strong performance by many African economies over the past two decades led some commentators to coin the term “Africa Rising” to describe the region’s surging economic power.

The term graced the cover of TIME magazine in December 2012, in an issue that chronicled the region’s decades-long journey from economic anemia to impressive vigor. Beginning in the mid-1990s, many—but certainly not all—countries in sub-Saharan Africa energized their economies, achieving in recent years some of the world’s highest growth. Living standards improved as a result, as did health care and other key services, inspiring hope for a bright future.

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A Big Step Forward for Bolstering Financial Inclusion

IMFBlog2017-04-14T01:48:23-04:00January 28, 2015|

By David Marston, Era Dabla-Norris, and D. Filiz Unsal

(version in Español)

Economists are paying increasing attention to the link between financial inclusion—greater availability of and access to financial services—and economic development. In a new paper, we take a closer look at exactly how financial inclusion impacts a country’s economy and what policies are most effective in promoting it.

The new framework developed in this paper allows us to identify barriers to financial inclusion and see how lifting these barriers might affect a country’s output and level of inequality. Because the more you know about what stands in the way of financial inclusion, the better you can be at designing policies that help foster it.

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Managing the revenue from natural resources—what’s a Finance Minister to do?

IMFBlog2017-04-14T01:59:33-04:00June 9, 2014|

By Sanjeev Gupta and Enrique Flores

(Versions in Español)

The Finance Minister answers her mobile. On the line is the Minister of Energy, who informs her that the country has struck oil and that he expects revenues from its sale to start flowing into the budget in the coming four years. While excited by the prospects of higher revenues—indeed the average resource-rich country gets more than 15 percent of GDP in resource revenues—she starts to ponder how to use these revenues for her country’s development. She is aware that only in rare cases have natural resources served as a catalyst for development; too often they have led to economic instability, corruption, and conflict or what has been termed as “the resource curse.”

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The New Frontier: Economies on the Rise

IMFBlog2017-04-14T02:01:21-04:00May 19, 2014|

By Min Zhu

(Version in 中文,Français, Português, and Español)

There is a group of fast-growing low-income countries that are attracting international investor interest—frontier economies. Understanding who they are, how they are different, and how they have moved themselves to the frontier matters for the global economy because they combine huge potential with big risks.

Get to know them

The first thing to note is that some of these countries already have moved to the lower-middle income group. While a working definition of frontier economies is subject to further discussion, broadly speaking, these countries have been deepening their financial markets, such as Bangladesh, Kenya, Nigeria, Mozambique, and Vietnam.

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Showcasing a More Confident Africa

IMFBlog2017-04-15T14:14:10-04:00December 16, 2011|

Africa is on the move. While several other regions of the world have to address slowdown and uncertainty, many countries in Africa have been facing a contrasting challenge: to respond to the growing demand for their bountiful resources and manage rising investment in much-needed infrastructure. But at the same time, growing economic uncertainty in the world is raising concerns across the continent where vulnerability to global shocks remains high.

Africa: Changing the Narrative

IMFBlog2017-04-15T14:15:46-04:00December 2, 2011|

Enduring poverty and conflict are so stark in Africa that it is sometimes difficult to see what else is happening. In April 2011, a study published by the Columbia Journalism Review titled “Hiding the Real Africa” documented how easily Africa makes news headlines in the West when a major famine, pandemic, or violent crisis breaks. But less attention is given to positive trends and underlying successes. In many cases, despite accelerated economic growth over the past 10 years, the rise of a middle class of consumers, and a more dynamic private sector attracting indigenous entrepreneurs, the narrative about Africa has remained focused on the bad news. That has, fortunately, started to change. This week’s cover story in The Economist, on “Rising Africa”, is testament to that. So too is the just-released December 2011 issue of Finance and Development (F&D) magazine on “Changing Africa: Rise of a Middle Class”, which explores Africa's potential.