Africa

In a scene on a popular Benin TV series, a farmer named Codjo puts his wife out on the streets because she kept asking him for more and more money to buy groceries. But then, when he goes shopping by himself, Codjo discovers that prices have indeed doubled.

He laments having driven away his wife.

This fictional sketch is being played out in reality with the rapid rise in prices of basic foods in the capital Cotonou and other towns in Benin over the last six months.

"Compared to November 2007, prices are between 20 and 50 percent higher," said Claude Allagbe, director of commerce at the ministry of the interior.

IRIN found vendors in Cotonou selling a kilogramme of salt for 450 CFA francs, up from 250 CFA francs in November. Rice was selling at 450 CFA francs per kilo compared to 300 CFA francs and palm oil had leapt to 900 CFA francs from the earlier price of 500 CFA francs.

The psychological impact these price rises have had on families is palpable.

Acting Director, Department of Humanitarian and Social Affairs at ECOWAS Friday said that over 400 million Africans have been affected by employment crisis which has been manifested as a poverty crisis.

Henrietta Didigu made this statement on behalf of the acting commissioner of human development and gender at the ECOWAS ministers of public service conference at Lagoonda, Aberdeen, Freetown.

"Unemployment is now a key challenge which must be addressed in order to deepen our regional integration process," she said. Didigu said in spite of paucity of employment and unemployment data, reasonable proxies exist to point of a growing massive employment crisis. "For example youth unemployment ranges between 40-60% for most countries of the region, extreme poverty ranges between 16%-50% in member states. West African economies fail to create enough jobs for new labour market entrants," Didigu said.

Strong growth in Africa's gross domestic product is expected to continue in 2008 and 2009, according to Louis Kasekende, the chief economist at the African Development Bank (ADB).

He was speaking in Maputo at the launch on Sunday of the seventh edition of the "African Economic Outlook", a report on the health of the continent's economy compiled by the ADB, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The launch was one of the preparatory events prior to the ADB Group's annual meetings scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday in the Mozambican capital.
Kasekende put Africa's overall growth rate at 5.7 per cent in 2007, and predicted that it would rise to 5.9 per cent this year, a rate that would remain steady in 2009.