The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of African countries Botswana and Mauritius took the most hit in 2020, according to a report by Capital Economics, an economic research firm based in London.
The report pointed to the COVID-19 pandemic as the cause of the steep fall in the GDP of both nations.
It stated that Mauritius’ economy contracted by an estimated 15.2 percent in 2020.
Speaking on the effects of the pandemic on these economies, the African Economist of Capital Economics, Virag Forizs, said, “Even as Sub-Saharan Africa gradually opens its doors to visitors, tourism sectors in the region face serious hurdles and we think that African economies dependent on the industry may be one of the slowest to recover from the coronavirus crisis.
“Some economies in the region, most notably Mauritius, rank amongst the most tourism-dependent countries globally.
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“Africa’s tourist hotspots like Mauritius and Botswana probably suffered the largest falls in GDP last year across the world. For example, Statistics Mauritius estimates a 15.2 per cent contraction of the country’s economy in 2020.
“Several factors are at play; at the risk of over-generalising, key among them are the role of international visitors, the success of containing COVID-19 outbreaks, the speed of vaccine roll-outs, and concerns about virus variants.
“International visitors, typically with higher incomes than the domestic population, are a key source of tourist spending across Sub-Saharan Africa.
“And the pandemic-hit to already lower earnings in Sub-Saharan African economies probably limits the expansion of domestic tourism, especially as we think that recoveries will be sluggish across the region.”
On vaccine distribution in Africa, Forizs said that the continent fell behind the rest of the world.
He said, “Vaccine distribution in Africa is lagging behind other parts of the world, and reaching herd immunity may take years. So long as the virus continues to spread, new variants are more likely to emerge. And governments may be wary of ‘importing’ these new virus strains out of concern about potentially reduced vaccine effectiveness.”
