Bernardo Bruzzone: ALL BLOG POSTS
In the face of economic challenges after the political upheaval of the 2000-11 period, Côte d’Ivoire has implemented major reforms, allowing it to become one of the most dynamic economies in Africa. Significant public investment, combined with strong prices for many agricultural cash crops, helped achieve average annual GDP growth of 8.5% between 2012 and 2018, and preliminary growth figures stood at 7.5% in 2019. Moves made to diversify the economy away from a reliance on raw exports are already paying dividends, and there has been a renewed focus on developing the business environment to further encourage private-sector-led growth.
At home, Morocco has identified the reduction of social inequality as a key priority, setting in motion a series of reforms and transferring critical development funds to less-developed regions. Abroad, Morocco’s foreign policy objectives focus on spearheading intra-African cooperation and positioning itself at the centre of Europe-Africa relations. Gains were made on all these fronts in 2019, supported by growing GDP that reached $118.5bn in 2018. However, vulnerabilities remain in the form of a large agriculture sector dependent on weather and commodity prices, as well as a substantial energy import bill whose size is dictated by international oil and gas prices.
