Building Macroeconomic Resilience Through Counter-Cyclical Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa

The report examines macroeconomic resilience in 12 sub-Saharan African countries, focusing on the use of monetary and fiscal instruments to stabilise production and inflation cycles. It identifies commodity price downcycles as the most consistent trigger for economic crises and argues that currency regimes significantly influence a nation's ability to absorb shocks. The author develops the CoMPRA-MERI index to track resilience across seven dimensions: fiscal, monetary, external debt, trade, investment, governance, and human capital. Findings suggest that most countries exhibit procyclical outcomes due to structural constraints, though Uganda is noted as a successful exception in applying countercyclical tools. The report recommends trade diversification and a shift toward more flexible exchange rate regimes to enhance structural resilience.

• Commodity price downcycles are the most frequent trigger for socio-economic crises or GDP growth decelerations across the studied cohort, particularly for countries dependent on single exports like Nigeria (oil), Botswana (diamonds), and Mali (gold).
• Currency regimes significantly impact growth and stability; members of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) with a fixed peg to the euro experienced suppressed per capita GDP growth compared to the rest of the cohort, as the structurally over-valued currency incentivises imports over domestic production.
• Most countries in the cohort experience procyclical fiscal and monetary outcomes, meaning they lack the capacity or willingness to resist market forces or use tools to counter the business cycle. Uganda is identified as the only country that successfully uses both monetary and fiscal tools countercyclically.
• There is a general lack of coincidence between production and inflation cycles over the short term across the cohort, which complicates the sequencing of policy measures intended to achieve internal macroeconomic balance.
• External debt accumulation generally acts as a net drag on GDP growth, with a positive correlation between external debt resilience and GDP growth found in eight of the 12 countries.
• Governance is a critical driver of resilience, with positive correlations to GDP growth in 10 of the 12 countries in the short term, as it influences investor confidence and policy consistency.
• While all 12 countries show a structural trend of building generational resilience through human capital formation, in countries with decelerating growth (Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, and Rwanda), this is negatively correlated with GDP growth, suggesting social spending may contribute to fiscal drag via debt accumulation.

APA

Van Gass, C. (n.d.). Building Macroeconomic Resilience Through Counter-Cyclical Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa. South African Institute of International Affairs. https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/SAIIA_CoMPRA-PI_26_.BuildingMacroeconomicResiliencepdf-1.pdf

Chicago

Van Gass, Conrad. Building Macroeconomic Resilience Through Counter-Cyclical Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa. South African Institute of International Affairs, n.d. https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/SAIIA_CoMPRA-PI_26_.BuildingMacroeconomicResiliencepdf-1.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Van Gass |first1=Conrad |title=Building Macroeconomic Resilience Through Counter-Cyclical Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa |publisher=South African Institute of International Affairs |url=https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/SAIIA_CoMPRA-PI_26_.BuildingMacroeconomicResiliencepdf-1.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{vangassndbuilding, author = {Van Gass, Conrad}, title = {{Building Macroeconomic Resilience Through Counter-Cyclical Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa}}, institution = {South African Institute of International Affairs}, url = {https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/SAIIA_CoMPRA-PI_26_.BuildingMacroeconomicResiliencepdf-1.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }