WEARING a cowboy hat and holding two scrawny goats at the end of a tether, the farmer scowls when asked how business is going at Nyamata Market, a patch of dusty earth about 25km south of Kigali, Rwanda’s capital. “People have no money,” he grumbles, pointing at his unsold animals. As if to underscore the point one of the goats jets a stream of urine at your correspondent’s shoe. Rwanda’s economy, like many across Africa, has been hit by the twin blows of drought and low prices for minerals.
Growth in sub-Saharan Africa slumped to 1.4% last year, its slowest pace in two decades, reckons the IMF. Since the region’s population is growing at about twice that rate, this means that GDP per head fell for the first time in more than 20 years. Economies slowed in two-thirds of countries south of the Sahara.
A year earlier, cheaper oil helped speed growth in some countries. Nigeria and Angola, where the black stuff used to account for as much as 90% of exports, were walloped. But...Continue reading
Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/2qKa81f
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