Sub-Saharan Africa’s economy is set to expand by 3.7 per cent in 2021 and 3.8 percent in 2022, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said.

According to the IMF Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa, this followed the sharp contraction in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and is much welcome, but still represented the slowest recovery relative to other regions.

Mr Abebe Aemro Selassie, Director, African Department, IMF said, the economic outlook pointed to divergences at three levels: between sub-Saharan Africa and other regions, within sub-Saharan Africa, and within countries.

He said these divergences reflected the region’s slower vaccines rollout, more limited fiscal space, and regional disparities in resilience.

He said the outlook remained extremely uncertain, and risks were tilted to the downside.

“The recovery depends on the path of the global pandemic and the regional vaccination effort, food price inflation, and is also vulnerable to disruptions in global activity and financial markets,” he added.

He said looking ahead, sub-Saharan Africa’s potential remained undiminished, and the region was at a critical juncture to implement bold transformative reforms to capitalize on this potential.