Africa's Economic Linchpin: The Looming Threat of Commodities Dependency

The African continent has received much scrutiny for its perceived economic underperformance and seemingly endless waves of social and political strife. Yet, some of the countries that make up the continent have achieved undeniable growth, even in the midst of unprecedented global crises. I compared the economic growth of African nations under periods of global economic stress to determine which countries were most and least resilient, and identify which types of issues had the most impactful on the continental pocketbook.

Using a dataset that contains the GDPs of more than 30 African countries spanning back to 1960 from researcher, Umair Zia, and Kaggle user, Batros Jamali, along with data analysis in Python, I was able examine and compare the GDP growth rates of different African nations under periods of global financial stress.

Referencing this Reuters article on the biggest financial crises of global of the past four decades as well an article by the World Bank on the economic impacts of COVID-19, three periods of global financial stress were originally chosen for this observation: the Asian Currency Crisis of the late 1997, the global financial crisis of 2008 (Great Recession), and the recession resulting from COVID-19.

The Asian Currency Crisis took place in the mid to late 1990s when attempts to keep a Thai Baht pegged to the US dollar resulted in the depleted foreign currency reserves. The subsequent instability and rapid devaluation of multiple currencies in the region had a marked effect on the world economy.

The 2008 Global Financial Crisis was sparked by the collapse of the U.S. housing market and the subprime lending system. As financial institutions around the world teetered or failed, global credit froze, trade contracted, and economic growth stalled, the most severe worldwide recession since the 1930s was triggered.

Beginning in early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic brought about a near-instant halt to global mobility and commerce. Widespread lockdowns, supply chain breakdowns, and emergency spending created economic shockwaves that disrupted major sectors, with developing countries facing health crises in conjunction with fiscal strain.

After putting a microscope on Africa over the course of these disasters, the results were surprising.

THE METHOD

1. IMPORT REQUIRED LIBRARIES:

import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import seaborn as sns

2. LOAD AND PREPARE DATA:

# Read the African GDP dataset
df = pd.read_csv('../input/gdp-growth-of-african-countries/Africa_GDP.csv')

# Define major global crisis periods with unique colors
crisis_periods = {
    'Asian Crisis': {'period': (1997, 1998), 'color': 'orange', 'alpha': 0.2},
    'Global Financial Crisis': {'period': (2008, 2009), 'color': 'red', 'alpha': 0.2},
    'COVID-19': {'period': (2020, 2021), 'color': 'purple', 'alpha': 0.2}
}

3. CREATE VISUALIZATION:

# Set up the plot
plt.figure(figsize=(12, 6))

# Calculate mean GDP growth across all countries for each year
yearly_means = df.mean(axis=1, numeric_only=True)

# Plot the main trend line
plt.plot(df['Year'], yearly_means, marker='o', color='#1f77b4')

# Highlight crisis periods with different colors
for crisis, info in crisis_periods.items():
    plt.axvspan(info['period'][0], info['period'][1], 
                color=info['color'],
                alpha=info['alpha'],
                label=crisis)

# Add labels and formatting
plt.title('African GDP Growth and Major Global Crises')
plt.xlabel('Year')
plt.ylabel('Average GDP Growth Rate')
plt.legend()
plt.grid(True)
plt.show()

4. INITIAL OBSERVATIONS:

• The data reveals varying impacts of global crises on African economies

• African economies showed unexpected resilience during COVID-19

• An unexplained significant decline appears between 2014-2016

Impressions

The analysis revealed several key insights:

1. Africa didn’t flinch the way we would expect during COVID.

   In fact, some countries (Gabon, Zimbabwe, Sudan) grew. This counters the dominant “fragile Africa” narrative and hints at internal economic dynamics that helped buffer the blow, such as mobile banking, domestic agriculture, and relative insulation from global tourism dependency.

2. The Global Financial Crisis hit resource-exporting nations hard.

   Oil-producing countries like Libya and Algeria saw sharp GDP drops. But Zimbabwe? Their economy skyrocketed up almost 119%. Some of this may reflect post-hyperinflation stabilization rather than true growth, but the contrast is striking.

3. The Asian Currency Crisis may have had a delayed adverse effect on the economies of African nations when compared with the rest of the world (notice how there’s a dip right after the crisis). This makes some intuitive sense as the catalyst for the crisis was the de-pegging of a major Southeast Asian currencies to the US dollar (to date; the Djiboutian Franc is the sole African currency to be fully pegged to the dollar).

2014: The Phantom Crisis

*Click/hover to reveal more information.

Although no official “crisis” occurred between 2014 and 2016, for African nations it was very much a period of great concern. This was the Commodity Price Crash. Oil prices tanked. Copper collapsed. And suddenly, Africa’s economic lifeblood was on its last legs.

The 2014-2016 Commodity Price Crash devastated African economies with the force of a major recession, yet it barely registered in global economic discourse. Why? Because it lacked the theatrical elements that make Western financial crises “newsworthy."

There were no dramatic bank collapses. No Bear Stearns-style implosions. Jim Cramer wasn’t trying to yell his tonsils out on national television. Just the slow, grinding reality of national budgets evaporating as oil prices plummeted from $115 per barrel in June 2014 down, down, down to under $30 by January 2016. For Western consumers, this translated to cheap gas at the pump and lower heating bills, far from most would consider economic pain. But for commodity-dependent African nations, it was an existential threat. Nigeria, Africa's largest economy, entered its first recession in 25 years. Angola's economy contracted sharply. Chad, heavily dependent on oil exports, saw its GDP shrink by nearly 28%.

The asymmetry was stark: developed nations experienced the commodity crash as a consumer windfall, while African economies faced currency devaluations, spiraling debt, and fiscal crises. The Nigerian Naira lost over 40% of its value, decimating the average person’s purchasing power. Government revenues collapsed, forcing brutal austerity measures and delayed salaries for public workers.

Yet this crisis remained largely invisible to international media. There were no primetime specials, no emergency G20 summits, no “too big to fail" rescue packages. Let’s not sugarcoat it: the story didn't fit the narrative template of global financial crises because it primarily affected economies already presumed to be struggling. When crisis is your expected state, nobody notices when things get substantially worse.

The 2014-2016 period revealed something uncomfortable: there is a financial media narrative controlled by conglomerates who get to decide which crises “count" and which don’t. A Wall Street banker losing his bonus gets more coverage than an entire African nation losing a quarter of its economic output.

Turns out financial crises only officially count if they:

• Affect countries that host major financial news networks

• Involve institutions “too big to fail" that people in the West have retirement savings in

• Can be explained with dramatic footage of distressed traders and red numbers on a screen

• Impact the economies of those who write books about what impacts the economy

African economies losing 20-30% of their GDP? Not cinema.

RESILIENCE RANKINGS: WHO WEATHERS THE STORM?

Across four major economic shocks spanning nearly three decades, clear patterns emerge distinguishing Africa's economic survivors from its perennial victims.

Winners:

1. ETHIOPIA 🇪🇹

1. KENYA 🇰🇪

2. RWANDA 🇷🇼

Ethiopia stands out as Africa's most consistently resilient economy. During the Commodity Crisis, it achieved remarkable 33.60% growth while oil exporters collapsed. During the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, it posted 19.84% growth. Even during COVID-19, when most economies contracted, Ethiopia maintained positive momentum at 3.35%. This resilience stems from consistent economic diversification: agriculture, manufacturing, and services rather than just resource extraction, combined with heavy state investment in the country’s infrastructure.

Kenya demonstrated similar stability, appearing in the “least affected" category during both the 2008 crisis (+17.97%) and the Commodity Crisis (+9.56%). Its relatively diversified economy, anchored by services, agriculture, and a growing tech sector, provided insulation from the commodity price fluctuations that devastated neighbors.

Rwanda, though small, showed remarkable consistency with positive growth during the Commodity Crisis (+5.54%) and strong fundamentals throughout other periods. Its post-genocide economic reconstruction focused explicitly on reducing commodity dependence, a strategy that paid off in dividends when global commodity markets collapsed.

Losers:

1. LIBYA 🇱🇾

2. GABON 🇬🇦

3. NIGERIA 🇳🇬

4. ALGERIA 🇩🇿

On the opposite end, certain economies appeared repeatedly among the hardest hit across multiple crises and the common thread among them is unmistakable: oil dependency.

Libya holds the unfortunate distinction of ranking among the most affected economies in three separate crises. During the Asian Crisis, it contracted 11.24%. During the 2008 crisis, it fell 29.87%. During COVID-19, it experienced the worst continental performance at -27.25%. Political instability compounds economic vulnerability, but oil dependence remains the fundamental weakness.

Gabon appeared in the “most affected" category during three crises: Asian Crisis (-15.83%), Global Financial Crisis (-22.21%), and Commodity Crisis (-22.96%). With oil accounting for roughly 80% of exports and 45% of GDP, Gabon's economy moves in lockstep with global oil prices. When prices fall, the entire economy convulses.

Nigeria, Africa's largest economy (and my birth country—go Super Eagles!), demonstrated particular vulnerability during the Commodity Crisis with a devastating 29.53% contraction, the worst performance of any nation during that period. As Africa's largest oil producer heavily dependent on petroleum revenues for the vast majority of its export earnings and government revenue.

Algeria rounded out this vulnerable quartet, appearing among the hardest hit during both the 2008 crisis (-16.67%) and the Commodity Crisis (-24.35%). Like its fellow oil producers, Algeria's failure to diversify away from hydrocarbons, despite decades of stated intentions of doing precisely that, left it structurally vulnerable to price shocks.

Weirdos:

1. ZIMBABWE 🇿🇼

2. SOMALIA 🇸🇴

Two countries defy easy categorization through sheer unpredictability. Zimbabwe swung wildly between extremes: devastating decline during the Asian Crisis (-24.94%), then an almost incomprehensible 118.90% growth during the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (likely reflecting post-hyperinflation stabilization rather than genuine economic expansion), before showing resilience during COVID-19 (+31.90%). Zimbabwe's volatility reflects domestic political and monetary chaos more than the impact of external economic forces.

Somalia, despite being classified as a fragile state, showed surprising counter-cyclical tendencies. It posted the strongest growth of any African nation during the Asian Crisis (+35.15%) and maintained positive momentum during the Commodity Crisis (+13.05%). However, it also experienced the single worst decline during the 2008 crisis (-50.14%). This erratic pattern likely reflects Somalia's informal economy operating outside traditional global financial channels, sometimes a liability, sometimes a strange form of insulation, depending on the circumstances.

The pattern is unambiguous: economic diversification determines resilience. Countries that built economies around services, agriculture, manufacturing, and technology were much better prepared to weather global shocks. Countries that built economies around extracting and exporting a single commodity became economic hostages when prices fell.

Ethiopia, Kenya, and Rwanda invested in economic complexity. Libya, Gabon, Nigeria, and Algeria chose the apparent shortcut of resource extraction. These individual country patterns reveal a broader structural truth about African economic vulnerability, one that becomes even clearer when we step back and look at the continental picture.

the quantified Conclusion

African economies show distinct patterns of vulnerability to global economic shocks. Ethiopia, Kenya, and Rwanda demonstrated exceptional resilience across multiple crisis periods, likely due to their more diversified economic structures. In contrast, resource-dependent nations like Libya, Gabon, Nigeria, and Algeria consistently ranked among the most vulnerable, showing sharp declines, especially during commodity price fluctuations.

The 2014-2016 Commodity Crisis proved especially damaging to these oil-exporting economies, with Nigeria experiencing a 29.53% contraction. Interestingly, some countries display puzzlingly inconsistent patterns: Zimbabwe swung from a severe decline during the Asian Crisis (-24.94%) to showing remarkable growth during the Global Financial Crisis (+118.90%), while Somalia showed surprising strength during certain downturns despite its fragile state status. COVID-19 revealed an unexpected pattern, with traditionally vulnerable economies like Gabon and South Africa demonstrating strong resilience, suggesting potential improvements in economic management over the years.

Africa’s biggest vulnerability (with respect to its economies) isn’t global finance or public health, it’s an overreliance on commodities. In every major shock, the hardest-hit countries were those whose economies were bound to oil, gas, or mineral exports. When commodity prices dip, national budgets of African states collapse. And the 2014–2016 slump, underreported and largely invisible to mainstream economic coverage, revealed the true extent of that exposure.

Meanwhile, countries with more diversified economies consistently showed remarkable resilience, even during global recessions that hampered wealthier nations. If we keep pretending Africa’s greatest economic threats come from the outside, and that they are powerless to deal with them, we’ll miss the point. The next meltdown for the continent might not be global in origin, it might actually stem from a bad quarter on the London Metal Exchange.

The question we should be asking isn't: “Can African economies survive global crises?”

It's: “Can they survive the economic addictions of their own making?” and “Will the rest of the world notice if they can’t?"

Note: This analysis was conducted using Python 3 with the pandas, seaborn, and matplotlib libraries. GDP data was sourced from a publicly available dataset on Kaggle compiled by Umair Zia and Batros Jamali, covering 30+ African nations from 1960–2023. Crisis context and historical framing drew from Reuters' comprehensive overview of major financial crises over the past four decades, as well as the World Bank's analysis of COVID-19's economic impacts on developing economies, both linked in article. Key data processing code provided for reproducibility.