Unlocking Africa’s $100 billion public-finance opportunity
- Acha Leke, Yaw Agyenim-Boateng, Francisco Mendes, and Aurelien Vincent
- Oct 2019
- McKinsey & Co
- International
Although Africa remains the world’s poorest continent, many of its governments have made impressive progress in fostering development and improving people’s lives. Will this progress be sustained or stalled in the decade ahead? In large part, the answer will boil down to finance. Africa today faces a perfect storm of a slowdown in growth, depressed commodity prices, stagnant tax revenues, and rising public debt. In this paper, we highlight the public-finance challenges facing Africa today, and we assess the opportunities for African governments to improve both revenue collection and spending efficiency. We also point to the far-reaching transformation that many will need to undertake if they are to deliver on those opportunities. It is clear that Africa’s fiscal challenges, while serious, can be resolved through levers that are available to most countries. Africa’s governments have the power to navigate today’s
headwinds and steer the contine
