Nigeria not on World Bank's list of fastest growing countries in Africa

No fewer than seven African countries are among the fastest growing in the world.
Nigeria is conspicuously missing on the list released in Washington, United States of America on Monday by the World Bank in its latest report dubbed Africa’s Pulse.
The fastest growing countries in Africa, according to the World’s financial police, are Sierra Leone, Niger, Cote’D'Ivore, Liberia, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso and Rwanda.
The report noted significant economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa, projecting five per cent on the average between 2013 and 2015.
The report said in part: “Economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is likely to reach more than 5 per cent on average in 2013-2015 as a result of high commodity prices worldwide and strong consumer spending on the continent, ensuring that the region remains amongst the fastest growing in the world.
“In 2012, about a quarter of African countries grew at 7 per cent or higher and a number of African countries, notably Sierra Leone, Niger, Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso and Rwanda, are among the fastest growing in the world.”
The World Bank’s Vice President for Africa, Makhtar Diop, welcomed the new assessment that Africa continues to grow faster than the global average, but called for faster progress in areas such as electricity and food in the vulnerable areas of the Sahel and the Horn of Africa.
Diop said: “African countries will need to bring more electricity, nutritious food, jobs and opportunity to families and communities across the continent in order to better their lives, end extreme poverty, and promote shared prosperity.
“Without more electricity and higher agricultural productivity, Africa’s development future cannot prosper.
“The good news is that governments in Africa are intent on changing this.”
Africa’s Pulse also notes that recent discoveries of oil, natural gas, copper and other strategic minerals and the expansion of several mines or the building of new ones in Mozambique, Niger, Sierra Leone, and Zambia, together with better political and economic governance, were sustaining solid economic growth across the continent.
The report said further: “Consumer spending, which accounts for more than 60 per cent of Africa’s GDP, remained strong in 2012.
“This trend was driven by declining inflation, which fell from 9.5 per cent in January 2012 to 7.6 per cent in December 2012; improved access to credit, for example in Angola, Ghana, Mozambique, South Africa, and Zambia; lower interest rates – for every interest rate hike there were three cuts; and a rebound in agricultural incomes, thanks to more favorable weather conditions in countries such as Guinea, Mauritania and Niger, which all experienced better rains compared with the 2010/2011 crop year; and the steady remittance inflows, which are estimated at $31 billion in 2012 and 2011.
“Increased investment flows are supporting the region’s growth performance.
“In 2012, for example, net private capital flows to the region increased by 3.3 per cent to a record $54.5 billion; and foreign direct investment inflows to the region increased by 5.5 percent in 2012 to $37.7 billion.”
However, it is observed that “Africa’s impressive growth has not reduced poverty enough. While the broad picture emerging from the data is that Africa’s economies have been expanding robustly and that poverty is coming down, the aggregate hides a great deal of diversity in performance, even among Africa’s faster growers,” said Shanta Devarajan, the World Bank’s Chief Economist for Africa, and lead author of the new report.