Ivory Coast: Electoral risk ahead

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Africa

Africa escaped the worst immediate impact of the global financial crisis. Its governments are not rushing to the IMF for a bailout. Its banking sectors, which have functioning regulatory structures and generally conservative lending policies, are not overloaded with toxic debt. In the case of South Africa, the exchange controls on offshore investment by domestic institutions proved their value. This conservatism has given African banks some protection from the freezing of external credit lines (although many junior miners have been casualties).

Africa is not immune from the second-round impact of the crisis (which will hit the real economies). Official growth forecasts are being trimmed across the continent. Falling commodity prices have led to the mothballing of mining capacity, the slashing of investment programmes, acute fiscal pressures and local currency weakness.

Our research focus is now on fiscal adjustment, public infrastructure spending and the health of the banking sector in the three leading economies (South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt). At the same time, we will continue to analyse investment prospects in a number of the second-tier African economies such as Ghana and Angola.