The combination of the COVID-19 pandemic with the climate and security crises has had a particular impact on Niger's health indicators. A large and growing proportion of Niger's population is in poor health. Restoring public health priorities and resuming economic growth are essential conditions for sustainably financing increased health spending and achieving better health outcomes.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- The Niger Economic Update Report provides an in-depth analysis of the performance of the Nigerien economy over the past year while offering recommendations to overcome the main challenges the country will face.
- GDP growth in 2021 slowed to 1.4% due to the security, health and climate shocks that affected the country. This led to a contraction in GDP per capita of 2.3% and an increase of 1.4 percentage points in the extreme poverty rate to 41.8% with the number of extremely poor people increasing from 9.8 million to 10,5 million.
- The forecast of a return to sustained 5.2% growth rate in 2022 is based on several positive developments, including the return to an average agricultural season and a gradual improvement in the security situation. Poverty is expected to decline by 0.8 percentage points to 41% in 2022. The number of poor is expected to increase by 200,000 people to 10.7 million in 2022 due to rapid population growth.