{
  "title": "Delivering on Africa’s Dreams",
  "publication": "IMF Blog, February 26, 2020",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2020/02/26/blog-delivering-on-africas-dreams",
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  "summary": "Across sub-Saharan Africa, school visits revealed a duality: strong hope and significant resource constraints.",
  "sections": [
    {
      "heading": "Education and technology as drivers of change",
      "content": "- Across sub-Saharan Africa, school visits revealed a duality: strong hope and significant resource constraints.\n- Education is highlighted as the primary driver of change and there is openness to using technology to overcome resource shortfalls.\n- Examples:\n  - At the Regent Square Municipal School (Sierra Leone) classrooms reflect the government’s Free Quality Education program but face large classes, overburdened and undertrained teachers, and a shortage of educational materials.\n  - In Niger, a research center on the edge of the Sahel Desert works on high-tech solutions to tackle malaria and climate change, while nearby students attend school in straw schoolhouses with blackboards but few books."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Sierra Leone: recovery, human capital, and financing",
      "content": "- Historical context and shocks:\n  - Emerged from a decade of civil war in 2002.\n  - Received $1.6 billion of debt relief.\n  - Suffered severe impacts from the 2014 Ebola outbreak amid a collapse of global commodity prices.\n- Policy focus:\n  - Government’s ambitious development program focuses on investing in infrastructure and human capital.\n  - Technology (digitalization) will be used to evaluate educational progress.\n  - Minister for Basic and Senior Secondary Education David Moinina Sengeh (also Chief Innovation Officer), an MIT PhD who led artificial intelligence work at IBM, directs the education portfolio.\n- Potential economic impact:\n  - Investing in children and education has the potential to raise GDP by 40 percent in the coming decades and to reduce income inequality.\n  - Contextual statistics: per capita GDP remains little more than $500; over half the population lives in poverty.\n- Financing and governance priorities:\n  - Key tasks: raise taxes in an evenhanded way, make government spending more effective, and strengthen governance (including tackling corruption).\n  - The IMF is providing training and support in revenue mobilization and tax management.\n  - Sierra Leone is creating technological solutions using AI and machine learning to address governance and revenue challenges.\n- International assistance trends:\n  - Post-conflict grant aid in countries like Rwanda and Mozambique amounted to around 8-9 percent of GDP in the decade after their civil conflicts.\n  - In Sierra Leone today, such assistance has fallen to 2-3 percent of GDP."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Niger: demographic pressures, security, and climate threats",
      "content": "- Growth and resource timeline:\n  - Niger has experienced strong growth in recent years.\n  - Crude oil exports are scheduled to begin in 2022.\n- Demography and development challenges:\n  - World’s highest population growth rate: 3.8 percent.\n  - Fertility: more than 7 children per mother.\n  - High child mortality.\n  - Developing the nascent private sector and creating jobs is the top priority.\n- Security and climate risks:\n  - Two existential threats: military conflict and climate change.\n  - Armed conflict is increasingly encroaching on Niger from terrorist groups across borders with Mali, Burkina Faso and Nigeria, increasing security expenditures and complicating public finances.\n  - Climate risks: as a predominantly agricultural economy dependent on modest annual rainfall, climate change is an ever-present reality.\n    - Temperatures in the Sahel are climbing 1.5 times faster than the global average, making rainfall erratic and wet seasons shorter.\n    - The UN estimates that 80 percent of the Sahel’s farmland has become degraded.\n- Strategic implications:\n  - Armed conflict and climate change have implications for advanced economies concerned about terrorism in North Africa and migration flows, highlighting common interests linking economic development and security."
    },
    {
      "heading": "From aspirations to reality — resource mobilization and collective responsibility",
      "content": "- Core message:\n  - Achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals in countries like Niger and Sierra Leone requires mobilizing both domestic and international resources.\n- Policy and financing priorities:\n  - Mobilize domestic resources through equitable tax reforms and improved tax administration.\n  - Strengthen governance and reduce corruption to make public spending more effective.\n  - Leverage technology (including AI and machine learning) to improve education outcomes and public-sector performance.\n  - Sustain and increase international assistance aligned with development needs.\n- Rationale:\n  - Grassroots visits show strong aspirations and the high return that added resources and better policies could yield in turning aspirations into tangible development outcomes.\n\nSource: Delivering on Africa’s Dreams — David Lipton, February 26, 2020.\n\n---\n\n\n References\n\n- عربي\n- 日本語\n- Português\n- https://www.imf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Lipton.jpg\n\nSource: https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2020/02/26/blog-delivering-on-africas-dreams"
    }
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    "Authors: David Lipton",
    "Published: February 26, 2020",
    "Across sub-Saharan Africa, school visits revealed a duality: strong hope and significant resource constraints.",
    "Education is highlighted as the primary driver of change and there is openness to using technology to overcome resource shortfalls.",
    "Examples:",
    "Historical context and shocks:",
    "Policy focus:",
    "Potential economic impact:",
    "Financing and governance priorities:",
    "International assistance trends:",
    "Growth and resource timeline:",
    "Demography and development challenges:",
    "Security and climate risks:",
    "Strategic implications:",
    "Core message:",
    "Policy and financing priorities:",
    "Rationale:",
    "[عربي](https://www.imf.org/ar/News/Articles/2020/02/26/blog-delivering-on-africas-dreams)",
    "[日本語](https://www.imf.org/ja/News/Articles/2020/02/26/blog-delivering-on-africas-dreams)",
    "[Português](http://www.imf.org/pt/News/Articles/2020/02/26/blog-delivering-on-africas-dreams?sc_mode=1)",
    "[https://www.imf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Lipton.jpg](https://www.imf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Lipton.jpg)"
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