SA and Nigeria take lion’s share of continent’s GDP

CLIVE EMDON SOUTH AFRICA and Nigeria accounted for more than half of the continent’s GDP in 2004 according to the World Bank’s African Development Indicator 2006 publication released last week. South Africa recorded US$215 billion (R1322bn) and Nigeria US$72 billion (R442.8bn) . The rest of Africa’s share amounted to US$234 (R1 439bn) for the same year. Africa’s economic performance since the mid 1990s is a mixture of remarkable progress and stagnation with some countries having seriously lagged behind, according to the report. ADI 2006 is a document that provides the most detailed collection of data on Africa. It contains about 450 macroeconomic, sectoral, and social indicators, covering 53 African countries. Despite the increasingly diverse economic outcomes, World Bank says that the continent made uniform progress in social outcomes such as health and education, and its per capita income is also rising along the same levels as other developing nations.