The World Bank has predicted that Nigeria and 39 other countries’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capital may not reach the pre-COVID-19 levels even by 2026, despite modest recoveries in most of the economies and analysts’ growth rates forecasts.
The Breton Woods institution made the forecast in its new report titled ‘From Double Shock to Double Recovery – Implications and Options for Health Financing in the time of COVID-19’.
The listed countries in the report comprised four low-income countries, 15 lower-middle-income countries, 10 upper-middle-income countries and 11 high-income countries.
The multilateral financial institution in the report findings stated that the COVID-19 pandemic “led to a deep economic contraction in 2020. On average, country GDP per capita is estimated to have contracted by 5.9 per cent.”
Despite the pandemic’s impact, the bank projected that the global economy would recover strongly in 2021, which may be the strongest growth after a recession in 80 years.
It stated: “The global economy is projected to bounce back strongly starting in 2021 – the recovery may well result in the strongest growth seen in the immediate aftermath of any recession in the last 80 years.”
Noting that just as the effects of the pandemic range from one economy to the other, the report reflected that so had been the recovery trend.
On the 40 listed countries that may not record pre-COVID 19 GDP per capital levels, the report further clarified: “The variation across countries observed in 2020 extends to country prospects for a subsequent return to economic growth.
“Of greatest concern, projected rates of economic growth will be insufficient to allow 40 countries to return to pre-COVID-19 levels of GDP per capita even by 2026. This group consists of four LICs, 15 LMICs, 10 UMICs, and 11 HICs.”
In the report, the World Bank categorized Nigeria under LMICs with other countries such as Algeria, Angola, Comoros, Republic of Congo, Eswatini and Micronesia.
Others in the same category are Papua New Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe, the Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tunisia, Vanuatu, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
The report findings further predicted that Nigeria and a few other countries would record about 20 percent decline in revenue per capita due to the lingering impact of the pandemic on their economies.
