Africa’s Growth Is Not Yet Prosperity, Says LOGI-CONSULT CEO

Rhavy Nursimulu, CEO of LOGI-CONSULT, says Africa’s economic transformation raises a bigger question than headline growth: how the continent converts expanding activity into durable productive capacity and shared prosperity. Investment is reshaping infrastructure, trade is connecting markets and industrial ambitions are gaining momentum, but the lasting value lies in the capabilities, enterprises and wealth that remain after the activity.

Nursimulu argues that GDP is indispensable because it measures the value an economy produces in a period. Its expansion can reflect stronger demand, investment and opportunity. But the focus should also be on a second balance sheet: the skills firms acquire, the industries they can sustain, the incomes households can rely on and the value left for reinvestment. These assets determine whether one period of growth improves the next.

From activity to capability

A mineral shipment adds to exports. A major infrastructure project raises construction activity. Higher commodity prices can strengthen public revenues. All three can be valuable, but their lasting significance depends on what follows. Domestic firms need to become suppliers. Technicians need transferable expertise. Manufacturers need dependable inputs. Public receipts need to strengthen the services on which enterprise depends. The question is not only what was produced or transported, but what the economy can produce next.

A nine-country comparison places 2025 real GDP per capita beside the latest available estimate of poverty below $3 a day. Mauritius and the Democratic Republic of Congo occupy very different positions. The lesson lies beyond the endpoints. National output, household welfare and the institutions connecting them do not move in a mechanically uniform way. Distribution, economic structure, labour markets, public services and long histories of accumulation shape the outcome. The comparison is descriptive. Its poverty surveys span 2013 to 2022, while its GDP observations refer to 2025. It cannot measure the effect of recent growth on poverty or establish causality. It can expose how effectively an economy turns productive activity into household prosperity.

Manufacturing and structural change

Manufacturing offers one window into the process. Its share of GDP shows the relative weight of factory production, not technological sophistication, labour productivity or absolute output. Between 2005 and 2025, manufacturing’s share of GDP fell in five selected economies in the dataset: Mauritius, South Africa, Kenya, Morocco and Ethiopia. The declines were most pronounced in Mauritius and South Africa, at approximately 5.5 and 5.1 percentage points respectively. Morocco’s reduction was comparatively modest, at about 0.7 points.

The trajectories need different readings. Mauritius must consider how industrial upgrading can advance alongside an increasingly service-oriented economy. South Africa’s task includes renewing established industrial capabilities amid infrastructure and energy constraints. Morocco’s integration into international manufacturing networks raises the question of how far supplier development, engineering and technological learning extend into the domestic economy. Ethiopia’s industrial ambitions depend on the practical economics of factory utilisation, foreign exchange, logistics, reliable energy and access to markets.

Resource and farm value chains

Resource-rich economies have a larger opportunity around extraction. Mineral production can generate capital and foreign exchange, but it can also develop geological services, maintenance, processing where commercially viable, fabrication and domestic suppliers. Agriculture presents a parallel opening. Moving from farm output to higher-value food industries depends on storage, cold chains, processing, testing, packaging, certification and distribution. These capabilities determine how much of trade’s value an economy can create and retain. For African economies, the deeper dividend of growth is the ability to produce more, and to produce better, tomorrow.