AFRICAN ECONOMIES ARE NOT COMPETITIVE – WEF 2018 REPORT
African economies rank least competitive in World Economic Forum (WEF) 2018 report .
World Economic Forum (WEF) 2018 report says various African Economies have remained uncompetitive. The reason its says is especially due to weak institutions and inadequate public policies.
In the WEF 2018 report; US Economy topped the world ranking while African economies ranked among the least in the list. According to the reports no country can be fully competitive as the world average is 60. Also in the report African economies averaged at 45.2 over 100.
From the WEF 2018 figures, no African country is in the top 10 of the most performing countries, instead eight Sub-Saharan countries are among the 10 less competitive. Chad had the lowest score both in Africa and in the World with an average of 35.5 ranking 140th out of 140.
18 out of the 21 countries that had a score below 50 were from Sub-Saharan Africa. While 17 out of the 34 Sub-Saharan economies in the report were among the 20 less performing in the world.
Only two African economies, Mauritius and South Africa had above-average scores of 63.7 and 60.8 respectively.
Analysis from the report noted that sub-Saharan Africa were also the lowest in some of the 12 composites of the competitiveness report. The composites include economic environment, human capital, market, and innovation ecosystem.
In the WEF report Sixteen African countries were not considered. They include: Guinea-Bissau; Niger; Congo, Eritrea; Lybia; Somalia; Sudan; and South Sudan. The remaining countries are; Madagascar, Equatorial Guinea, Togo, Central Africa, Gabon, Sao Tomé & Principe, Djibouti, and Comoros.
The indicators for measuring the competitiveness of national economies are: institutions, infrastructures, technology adoption, macroeconomic stability, health, expertise, production market, labor market, financial systems, market size, trade dynamism, as well as innovation capacity.