Legatum Institute: The Africa Prosperity Report 2019-2020

The Legatum Institute’s Africa Prosperity Report quantifies prosperity across each African nation and tracks its evolution over the past decade.

• Prosperity in Africa is at its highest ever level, and 43 countries have improved in the last decade, though the divergence between the top and bottom ranked countries has increased.

• Each region of the continent has improved, with East Africa seeing the most improvement.
• Strong personal freedoms underpin rising prosperity, as seen in countries such as Togo.
• Social wellbeing has improved consistently over the last 10 years, with health and education standards rising, poverty rates falling, and living conditions improving.

• The most important underlying driver of improvements in prosperity over the last decade has been a strengthening of institutions.
• Microeconomic factors and social wellbeing have improved across the continent, even among countries that have declined in their overall prosperity.
• If all African countries were to replicate the high performance of the most prosperous countries on the continent, they would rank 38th in the world.