Transforming and Building Resilient Economies in Africa: Resetting Priorities for the Policy Agenda in the Post-Covid 19 Era

During the first decade of the 2000s, Africa experienced growth acceleration mostly propelled by a boom in the global demand for primary commodities and geared toward the external markets, with little synergies with the rest of the economy. When that external demand weakened in the wake of the global financial crisis in 2007-2008 and the end of the commodity super-cycle around 2014, Africa’s growth slowed down, and the deep-seated and structural weaknesses of African economies resurfaced. The COVID-19 pandemic found Africa desperately unprepared to withstand yet another global shock. The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened the necessity and urgency of Africa accelerating economic transformation to enhance the resilience of its economic structures to exogenous economic shocks. There is, therefore, an urgent need to renew our focus on this age-old question of economic transformation. From 2021, JICA conducted a research project on economic transformation in Africa in partnership with African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET), an African think tank. This report, based on the research project, aims to discuss, with a link to economic resilience in the context of global and regional trends, the intention to inform ongoing and future policy discussions.