Since the early 1990s, many countries in sub-Saharan Africa have made significant progress in opening their economies to external competition through trade and currency liberalization. This paper analyzes trade and policy developments for 22 countries in eastern and southern Africa, looks at...

Comoros is a small, fragile island state (population: 850,000) with persistently low and shock-prone growth. The last Article IV Consultation (completed in early 2020) assessed Comoros' fragility as arising from two vicious circles: economic fragility manifests in low fiscal revenue,...

A remote technical assistance (TA) mission was conducted by IMF's Regional Technical Assistance Center for Southern Africa (AFS)1 during April 12-16, 2021 to assist Statistics Botswana (SB) in improving the quality of the national accounts statistics. Reliable national accounts are essential for...

The economy recovered strongly in 2021, following an unprecedented real output contraction in 2020. However, the outlook remains precarious amidst projected future low growth, high unemployment and adverse debt dynamics, and the recovery pace is unlikely to be sustained. Ample buffers allowed...