June 24, 2010
The NYT ran a piece on a study showing an improving economic picture in Africa titled: “Report Optimistic on Africa Economies.” The article notes a number of measures by which Africa has been doing better in the last decade than it had in prior decades.
The article is accompanied by a chart that shows growth rates by continent over the last decade. The chart shows that Africa had an average annual growth rate of 4.9 percent. It would have been useful to point out that Africa’s population growth averaged 2.3 percent over this period. This means that it per capita GDP growth averaged just 2.6 percent.
While this is a much better growth rate than Africa saw in the prior two decades, it is only slightly faster than the 2.0 percent rate of per capita GDP growth seen in the United States over the period from 1960 to 2009. This means that even in this period of relative prosperity, Africa is making almost no progress in catching up with the developed world.
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