The World Bank says it sees improvement in social inclusion and structural policies in some countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) amid the ongoing global challenges.
In a release shared on Tuesday, the Bank said both improvements were reflected in the latest Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) scores for 39 countries in the region.
The CPIA is an annual diagnostic tool for countries eligible for financing from the International Development Association (IDA), the part of the World Bank that helps the world’s poorest countries.
The countries are rated on a scale of 1 (low) to 6 (high) across 16 dimensions reflecting four areas: economic management, structural policies, policies for social inclusion and equity, and public sector management and institutions.
“The 2023 report provides an assessment of the quality of policies and institutions in all 39 International Development Association (IDA)–eligible countries in SSA for calendar year 2022,” said the World Bank.
The average overall CPIA scores in SSA remained stable at 3.1. While many countries made improvements in “policies for social inclusion” and “structural policies”, these improvements were offset however by stagnation in “economic management” and “public sector management and institutions.”
“At a time of high global interest rates and weak economic growth, it is encouraging to see progress in policy reform, especially around private-sector reforms and protecting vulnerable people from economic fluctuations,” said Nicholas Woolley, economist with the World Bank Office of the Chief Economist for Africa.
The release explained that in 2022, the gap between sub-regions grew, as Western and Central Africa (AFW) continued its upward trend, improving scores slightly from 3.2 to 3.3, while Eastern and Southern Africa (AFE) remained unchanged at 3.0.
It said this gap could largely be attributed to the performance of fragile and conflict-affected states (FCS). In 2022, the four lowest-scoring countries (South Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia, and Sudan) were located in AFE and were experiencing conflict and fragility.
“Without these four states, the score between sub-regions is almost identical. While AFW also contains fragile and conflict-affected states, they performed relatively well, especially in economic management scores, owing perhaps to the beneficial impact of currency unions in West Africa,” the release added.