Sub-Saharan Africa has been identified as one of the few regions where moderate-to-strong growth is expected, despite heightened external risks and persistent structural constraints.
So said the World Economic Forum chief economists in their outlook for September 2025. A survey found that 71% of chief economists anticipated positive growth outcomes across the region, contingent on reform momentum and external stability.
The findings reflected a shift in global sentiment, with respondents increasingly focused on the region’s exposure to tariff regimes, declining development aid, and fiscal fragility.
The report stated that “growth prospects remained highly contingent on external stability, inflation moderation, and reduced political conflict”.
Economists noted, however, that “New US tariffs of 10%-30% implemented on August 7 across many countries in the region introduced fresh uncertainty that could derail these promising forecasts.”
The World Trade Organisation projected global trade growth of 0.9% in 2025. These developments carried direct implications for sectors in Sub-Saharan Africa including agriculture, manufacturing and logistics, where tariff sensitivity remained high.
In addition to trade volatility, the outlook highlighted the fiscal consequences of declining multilateral contributions and development aid. “Reductions in funding from advanced economies will exacerbate disparities between rich and poor countries,” the economists stated in the report, with implications for health, education, migration and climate resilience.
While the anticipated expansion of South–South co-operation was viewed as a partial offset, the report concluded that “existing financing mechanisms may prove inadequate to sustain social protection and disaster management programmes in the absence of traditional donor support”.
Global debt dynamics were also identified as a source of concern. “Advanced economies were now seen as more exposed to debt sustainability risks than developing ones,” the report stated. With global debt surpassing $100-trillion, economists warned of constrained fiscal space and diminished investor confidence.
For Sub-Saharan African legislatures, this necessitated a recalibration of fiscal assumptions and debt management strategies, particularly in jurisdictions where debt-service costs already consumed a rising share of expenditure.
Technology and artificial intelligence were cited both as sources of disruption and potential growth. “The rapid pace of AI development [is] adding another layer of uncertainty,” the outlook noted, with 68% of respondents expecting the technology to become commercially disruptive within the next year. The report flagged rising energy demand from data centres, intensified competition for skilled labour and geopolitical tensions over semiconductor supply chains as other emerging risks.
The outlook concluded that the global economy was undergoing structural realignment rather than a cyclical downturn. “The global economy is undergoing a period of profound transformation, marked by persistent short-term disruption and heightened uncertainty as well as long-term structural change,” the economists stated in the report.
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