African Economic Outlook 2020 reveals education’s efficiency spending is much low

Africa's economic growth continued to be stable at 3.4 percent in the last year. The experts believe that it is expected to pick up to 3.9 percent in 2020 and 4.1 percent in 2021.

The African Development Bank has recently released 2020 African Economic Outlook revealed that the growth has been less than inclusive in 2019. Only about a third of African countries achieved inclusive growth, reducing both poverty and inequality.

According to the 2020 African Economic Outlook, the slower than expected growth is partly due to the moderate expansion of the continent's 'big five' – Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa, Algeria and Morocco. The joint growth of these countries had an average rate of 3.1 percent in comparison to the average 4 percent for the rest of the continent.

The launch 2020 African Economic Outlook was attended by the former President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, African ministers, diplomats, researchers, and representatives of various international bodies. "There are stars among us…and we want to applaud them. We want to see more, particularly for countries like mine, which have been left behind, so that more can be done to give them the support that they need," Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said referring to Africa's fastest-growing economies.

According to the report, for the first time in a decade, investment expenditure, rather than consumption, accounted for over 50 percent of GDP growth in 2019. This shift can help sustain and potentially accelerate future growth in Africa, increase the continent's current and future productive base, while improving productivity of the workforce.

The 2020 African Economic Outlook called for progressive universalism in education spending by setting up high priorities for the poor and disadvantaged and for basic education, where social returns are highest. It also portrays that the public expenditures on education and infrastructure are highly complementary as investing in both the sectors has a much greater payoff than investing exclusively in just one.

The reports cited that efficiency of education spending is much lower in Africa than in developing and emerging Asia. It stated that key policies to improve spending efficiency and education quality include conducting education expenditure audits and reviews, improving teacher quality and using performance based financing.