Summary: Falling commodity prices, including tumbling oil prices, have slowed Sub-Saharan Africa’s growth this year. The World Bank Group reports that growth in the region has dropped to 4.0 percent in 2015, from 4.5 percent in 2014. The downturn largely reflects the fall in the prices of oil and other commodities, according to Africa’s Pulse, a twice-yearly World Bank Group analysis of the issues shaping Africa’s economic prospects. The 2015 forecast is below the 4.4 percent average annual growth rate of the past two decades, and well short of Africa’s peak growth rates of 6.4 percent in 2002-08. Excluding South Africa, the average growth for the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa is forecast to be around 4.7 percent.
