Browsing: Africa’s debt burden

Tourism sector rated best in The Gambia. www.theexchange.africa

The Gambia has a small economy that relies primarily on agriculture, tourism, and remittances for support. It remains heavily dependent on the agriculture sector.  The Gambia can bank on these sectors for economic growth and to repay their debt.

Gambian agriculture has been characterized by subsistence production of food crops comprising cereals (early millet, late millet, maize, sorghum, rice), and semi-intensive cash crop production (groundnut, cotton, sesame, and horticulture). Farmers generally practice mixed farming, although crops account for a greater portion of the production.

Groundnuts are the traditional cash crop. The Gambia also exports produce to Europe; Gambian mangoes and other fruits may now be found on the shelves of the supermarket chains like Tesco and Sainsburys. The Gambia’s largest trade partner is Cote D’Ivoire, a fellow Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) member, from which The Gambia imports the majority of its fuel products. Other major trade partners…

An informal settlement in South Africa. The projected continent-wide economic recovery will not favour populations with lower levels of education, few assets and those working in informal jobs. www.theexchange.africa

Africa is expected to recover from its worst recession in half a century and reach 3.4 per cent growth in 2021.
This growth which is expected to defy the effects of increasing debt burden and the Covid-19 pandemic does not however promise to wipe out poverty but instead an estimated 39 million more Africans could possibly slip into extreme poverty this year in addition to the about 30 million who were pushed into extreme poverty in 2020 as a result of the pandemic.…