GDP Growth Without Food Meaningless – Adesina

President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, has charged African leaders to prioritize citizen-oriented policies in their economic development agenda, saying that growth without food for the poor will worsen the poverty level on the continent.

Adesina, who declared this while unveiling the continent’s development finance institution’s African Economic Outlook (AEO) 2020, noted that while it is commendable that Africa’s economies were growing strongly, growth alone cannot meet the needs of the continent’s poorest citizens, because “nobody eats GDP,”.

A news report circulated by Africa Press Organisation (APO) Group on behalf of the Bank on the position of the AfDB’s President on recent economic growth being recorded in some of the economies, quoted the development banker as saying that as desirable as the growth remains, growth must, however “be visible. Growth must be equitable. Growth must be felt in the lives of people.”

Commenting on the report, the Bank’s Director of the Macroeconomic Policy, Forecasting and Research Department, Hanan Morsy, said: “Africa is blessed with resources, but its future lies in its people… education is the great equaliser. Only by developing our workforce will we make a dent in poverty, close the income gap between rich and poor, and adopt new technologies to create jobs in knowledge-intensive sectors.”

Specifically, the AEO 2020 reflected that the continent’s economies were growing well, higher than the global average, projecting a steady rise in growth in Africa from 3.4% in 2019 to 3.9% in 2020 and 4.1% in 2021.