Socioeconomic impact of conflict in Africa

Abstract

Conflict has been a major challenge in Africa in recent decades. Although Africa has experienced fewer conflicts in recent years than it did in the 1990s, they are still common in the region, with approximately 30 per cent of African countries affected by them in 2019. In addition, since the mid-2000s, there has been a resurgence of armed conflict on the continent. Conflict causes not only immense human suffering but also substantial economic losses. It places onerous burdens on the social development of countries, by decreasing revenues, increasing defense expenditure, and diverting funds away from social and development initiatives. The results of the present study, for which a dynamic panel estimation, the generalized method of moments, has been used, show that, in the period 1996–2022, countries affected by intensive conflict experienced, on average, a reduction of 20.0 per cent in annual economic growth and a decrease of 2.5 per cent in their scores for social outcomes.