Sub-Saharan Africa's Growth Requires Quality Education for Growing Population

IMF Blog, April 25, 2024

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The region’s population is poised to double to 2 billion by 2050.
Expansion will be led by growth in the working-age population of those ages 15 to 64, which will outpace other age groups and drive almost all the increase.
Demographic transition may be the biggest single opportunity for the economies of sub-Saharan Africa, contingent on sufficient investment in education.

Nearly three in 10 school-age children do not attend school.
For primary school students, the completion rate is around 65 percent, compared with a world average of 87 percent.
The literacy rate for those ages 15 to 24 is only 75 percent, below the nearly 90 percent rate in other emerging market and developing economies.
Pandemic-related school closures led to learning losses that in some cases reversed years of progress.
For the median country in sub-Saharan Africa, only 15 percent of students in primary and secondary school achieve more than the minimum learning outcome.
Teacher training rates have fallen steadily for two decades.

The median education budget was equal to about 3.5 percent of gross domestic product in 2020, which is below the international recommendation of at least 4 percent of GDP.
Recent IMF analysis indicates that achieving the key Sustainable Development Goal of universal primary and secondary school enrollment by 2030 may require doubling education expenditures as a share of GDP, including from both public and private funding sources.

Investment in education provides long-term economic gains such as higher productivity and foreign direct investment, as shown in the latest Fiscal Monitor.
Protecting education budgets amid tighter fiscal constraints and the ongoing funding squeeze is recommended to preserve future growth potential.
Better connecting the region’s abundant human resources with abundant capital in advanced economies and major emerging markets could attract long-term flows of investment, technology, and know-how.

Governments in sub-Saharan Africa should:
- Prioritize and protect education budgets amid tighter fiscal constraints.
- Implement best practices in public financial management to raise domestic revenue and ensure funds are well-spent.
- Improve the efficiency of spending to raise learning outcomes (noting low rates of students achieving more than minimum learning outcomes and declining teacher training rates).
Donors and international organizations should:
- Maintain or expand education funding support across the region to ensure the supply of a productive labor force.
With the right policies—especially in education—the region could better equip its young population for evolving technology and job landscapes and become a dynamic source of new demand for consumption and investment.

Based on the April 2024 Regional Economic Outlook for sub-Saharan Africa and related IMF analysis.

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