## Delivering on Africa’s Dreams

_IMF Blog, February 26, 2020_

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**Canonical URL:** [Delivering on Africa’s Dreams](https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2020/02/26/blog-delivering-on-africas-dreams)

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## Bibliographic details
- Authors: David Lipton
- Published: February 26, 2020

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### Education and technology as drivers of change
- 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:
  - 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.
  - 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.

### Sierra Leone: recovery, human capital, and financing
- Historical context and shocks:
  - Emerged from a decade of civil war in 2002.
  - Received $1.6 billion of debt relief.
  - Suffered severe impacts from the 2014 Ebola outbreak amid a collapse of global commodity prices.
- Policy focus:
  - Government’s ambitious development program focuses on investing in infrastructure and human capital.
  - Technology (digitalization) will be used to evaluate educational progress.
  - 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.
- Potential economic impact:
  - Investing in children and education has the potential to raise GDP by 40 percent in the coming decades and to reduce income inequality.
  - Contextual statistics: per capita GDP remains little more than $500; over half the population lives in poverty.
- Financing and governance priorities:
  - Key tasks: raise taxes in an evenhanded way, make government spending more effective, and strengthen governance (including tackling corruption).
  - The IMF is providing training and support in revenue mobilization and tax management.
  - Sierra Leone is creating technological solutions using AI and machine learning to address governance and revenue challenges.
- International assistance trends:
  - 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.
  - In Sierra Leone today, such assistance has fallen to 2-3 percent of GDP.

### Niger: demographic pressures, security, and climate threats
- Growth and resource timeline:
  - Niger has experienced strong growth in recent years.
  - Crude oil exports are scheduled to begin in 2022.
- Demography and development challenges:
  - World’s highest population growth rate: 3.8 percent.
  - Fertility: more than 7 children per mother.
  - High child mortality.
  - Developing the nascent private sector and creating jobs is the top priority.
- Security and climate risks:
  - Two existential threats: military conflict and climate change.
  - 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.
  - Climate risks: as a predominantly agricultural economy dependent on modest annual rainfall, climate change is an ever-present reality.
    - Temperatures in the Sahel are climbing 1.5 times faster than the global average, making rainfall erratic and wet seasons shorter.
    - The UN estimates that 80 percent of the Sahel’s farmland has become degraded.
- Strategic implications:
  - 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.

### From aspirations to reality — resource mobilization and collective responsibility
- Core message:
  - Achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals in countries like Niger and Sierra Leone requires mobilizing both domestic and international resources.
- Policy and financing priorities:
  - Mobilize domestic resources through equitable tax reforms and improved tax administration.
  - Strengthen governance and reduce corruption to make public spending more effective.
  - Leverage technology (including AI and machine learning) to improve education outcomes and public-sector performance.
  - Sustain and increase international assistance aligned with development needs.
- Rationale:
  - Grassroots visits show strong aspirations and the high return that added resources and better policies could yield in turning aspirations into tangible development outcomes.

*Source: Delivering on Africa’s Dreams — David Lipton, February 26, 2020.*

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2020/02/26/blog-delivering-on-africas-dreams_