The Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in West Africa has the worst death toll since the disease was diagnosed in 1976. It also has farreaching socio-economic consequences. Although the disease is still unfolding, several studies on those impacts have been conducted this year, including those by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Country Reports have been prepared by United Nations Country Teams (UNCTs) under the leadership of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) country offices and the World Health Organization (WHO).

But fewer reports have focused on West Africa, and virtually none on the continent of Africa. Moreover, most early prospects and projections on EVD’s socioeconomic impacts were based on patchy data and reflected uncertainty about the disease’s future epidemiological path. It is against this background that the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) began this study.

The overall objective is to assess the socioeconomic impacts on countries and Africa as a whole, both the real costs entailed and growth and development prospects, so as to devise policy recommendations to accompany mitigation efforts. The findings and conclusions of the study will be adjusted and updated until the crisis is over, culminating in a fully fledged evaluation of the impacts once the outbreak is contained.

EFFECTS ON ECONOMIC PROSPECTS IN WEST AFRICA AND THE CONTINENT

Although Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have suffered serious GDP losses, the effects on both West Africa and the continent as a whole will be minimal, partly because, on the basis of 2013’s estimates, the three economies together account for only 2.42% of West Africa’s GDP and 0.68% of Africa’s. Thus, if the outbreak is limited to these three countries, the size of its impact on GDP levels and growth will be extremely small. ECA simulations based on a “bad scenario,” where all three countries record zero growth in 2014 and 2015,suggest that the growth effect for these two years for West Africa will be only -0.19 and -0.15 percentage points, and for Africa as a whole a negligible -0.05 and -0.04 percentage points. In short, at least in economic terms, there is no need to worry about Africa’s growth and development prospects because of EVD.

POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

Economic

• In devising fiscal measures, the three governments should include social protection and safety net programmes to help families of victims and their immediate communities.

• The governments and their partners should invest in building skills and human capital in the three counties in the short, medium and long term so as to enhance labour supply.

• The monetary authorities should cut interest rates to boost growth.

• Tourism authorities should refocus their efforts on strategies to increase connectivity among them and the countries of the region more broadly, and on business-friendly travel, such as easing procedures for entry visas and encouraging competitive rates at hotels.

• Governments should reinforce border health checks rather than shut down borders, given the huge damage to economic activity that such closure entails, in affected and non-affected countries.

• The three countries should add value to export products so as to take advantage of preferential trade arrangements, such as the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act.

• Bilateral and multilateral creditors should seriously consider cancelling the three countries’ external debts.

• The three governments and their partners should engage in food aid efforts and emergency safety nets to address acute food shortages, particularly among the most vulnerable groups, such as children at risk of malnutrition.

• The three countries’ governments should provide special incentive packages to their farmers to help relaunch their agricultural sectors.

• The three governments should devise recovery contingency plans for quickly reviving their economies, which may require them to revise their medium-, and possibly long-term, national development plans.