How external shocks hit Africa’s development

Added: 2026-05-16

[00:00:00]I work mostly on African countries and the core development challenge for African countries today [music] is the proliferation of negative external shocks and the volatility that it brings to their economies. What are these shocks? Well, in this decade we've had the COVID pandemic, [music] we've had the Ukraine war which brought price pressures to African economies and now we have the Iran war which is bringing new price pressures. Laid on top of all of that is climate change and the negative weather shocks on the African continent. [music] These external shocks matter so much to African economies because development takes investment and if an economy is not growing and if there are all these risks and uncertainty associated with the external shocks and their effects, then nobody's making investment, not the private sector and the public sector doesn't have the resources either. So, [music] for me what the countries gathered here this week need to discuss is how to help African countries cope with these external shocks and get through them and restart development because African countries >> [music] >> didn't create these shocks. I'm Louise Fox and I'm affiliated on a non-resident basis with the Africa Growth Initiative at Brookings Institution.