Growth in eight UEMOA countries down to 5.7% due to multiple world crises

The eight member countries of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) have not been spared by multiple crises affecting the world and its economic growth rate reached 5.7% in 2022, down 0.4% compared to 2021, the leaders of this organization meeting in Abidjan announced this week.

The eight member countries of UEMOA — Senegal, Guinea Bissau, Côte d’Ivoire, Togo, Benin, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso — have not been spared by “the deep crises that affect the whole world”, in particular “the consequences of the war in Ukraine,” at the same time as “our economies were recovering from the shock” of the crisis related to Covid-19 pandemic, said Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara. In addition to the growth rate, which has slowed from 6.1% in 2021 to 5.7% in 2022, inflation within the union has risen from 3.6% to 7.5% in 2022, Ouattara said, adding that its member countries had nevertheless shown resilience.

Some of the expenditure that should have been allocated “to education and health” had been allocated “to defense and security,” the Ivorian president noted, imputing this to the “worrying” security situation because of “the increasing number of terrorist attacks” in several UEMOA countries, in particular Burkina Faso and Mali. The summit in Abidjan was held the day after the Abuja summit of the fifteen member countries of ECOWAS, to which the UEMOA belong, which decided to create a regional force to intervene not only against jihadism but also in the event of a coup d’état, as the region has experienced several over the past two years.