At the dawn of the new millennium the African Economic Outlook (AEO) was born out of the recognition that the continent needed a high-quality, independent tool for policy makers and analysts, investors, journalists, academics and students to monitor Africa’s economic development on a continuing basis. Because Africa is made up of so many different, fast-changing countries, such a tool would need to embrace the short-term performance of individual economies in their regional context; and, because development is multi-faceted, it would need to bring together the macroeconomic, structural and social dimensions. Over the years the partnership broadened, with the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) joining founding partners the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the OECD Development Centre, supported by the European Commission and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states secretariat, as full AEO partners. Coverage has expanded from 22 countries to 53, with only Somalia yet to be included.

Africa’s GDP grew at 6.6% in 2012 from 3.5% in 2011. This acceleration was partly due to considerable rebound in Libya’s GDP which in 2012 grew by 96%, after a sharp contraction of 60% in 2011 following the revolution. Netting out the Libyan effect, growth in Africa’s real GDP was recorded at 4.2%. Thus, Libya’s economic recovery added more than 2 percentage points to Africa’s growth in 2012.