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# The World Bank just raised Africa's growth forecast to 4.3%, and still expects poverty to barely move
- URL: https://www.businessbagel.com/world-bank-africa-growth-forecast-poverty/
- Published: 2026-10-08T08:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-08T07:59:59.000Z
- Description: The World Bank now expects Sub-Saharan Africa to grow 4.3% this year, better than it forecast in April, but says growth is still too slow to cut poverty or create enough jobs.
- Author: Christian Maidman
- Tags: Economy, Business Bagel News

Sub-Saharan Africa is growing a little faster than the World Bank expected six months ago. Its new Africa Economic Update, published on Tuesday, has the region growing 4.3% this year, up from 4.1% in 2025 and 0.3 percentage points above the bank's April forecast.

The upgrade is broad. Forecasts went up for nearly three-quarters of the region's countries, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Angola among them, and Andrew Dabalen, the bank's chief economist for Africa, puts that down to years of reforms and better economic management.

South Africa is not part of the speed-up. Citing the full report, bne IntelliNews says it has the country growing 1.0% this year, a shade slower than 1.1% in 2025\. The bank's press release mentions South Africa only once, as one of three countries, with Kenya and Nigeria, where the region's AI activity is concentrated.

The report's special focus is on artificial intelligence, and its prescription is less flashy than the title, Building AI-Readiness, might suggest. It wants governments to invest in reliable electricity, affordable connectivity and digital skills, and to aim for small, cheap AI tools for farming, health and schools rather than frontier systems. The starting line is a long way back: by the report's count, as cited by IntelliNews, about 900 million Africans are still offline, and the continent has 0.6% of the world's data-centre capacity.

## A poverty rate stuck near half

The bank's own warning is that this growth is too slow to make a real dent in extreme poverty or create enough jobs for a workforce that keeps getting bigger. Measured at $3 a day, the region's poverty rate is projected to slip only from 47.8% this year to 47.1% in 2027, and with the population growing fast, the number of poor people is expected to keep rising.

Income per person makes the gap plain. It is expected to grow 1.8% this year, from 1.6% last year, Reuters reports, which means the average person's share is growing at less than half the pace of the economy as a whole.

## Dearer fuel, heavier debt

The headwinds are mostly imported. Conflict in the Middle East has pushed up the price of fuel, fertiliser and food, and the bank expects median inflation across the region to jump from 3.7% in 2025 to 5.5% this year. The report, as cited by IntelliNews, says Brent crude averaged $120.4 a barrel in April after the Strait of Hormuz closed.

Debt has stopped climbing as a share of the economy, at around 57% of GDP, the region's total yearly output. Servicing it still crowds out spending on health, education and infrastructure, and Reuters reports that about half of the region's countries are either in default or struggling to keep up with payments. With major donors cutting aid, the bank says governments will have to raise more money at home and build up local capital markets.