Africa

Commonwealth Countries of Africa: Few Facts

There are 18 African nations that hold membership of the Commonwealth. Except Seychelles, rest of the countries attained accession to the WTO at different point of times during 1995-96. Seychelles holds observer status in the WTO.

In terms of Human Development Index (HDI) ranks, Mauritius and Seychelles are the only two countries in this group having high ranks. Seven other countries of the region fall in medium development range while nine countries fall under low HDI ranking category. Even these seven countries in medium development HDI category fall under last quarter of all medium HDI ranked countries. Eight Commonwealth countries of African region are classified as least developed by the UN.

Annual GDP growth rates for most of the countries are in the range of 4-6%. While Sierra Leone (7.1%), Mozambique (7.9%) and Malawi (8.5%) are among high growth countries, Cameroon (3.5%), Lesotho (3%), Seychelles (-1%) and Swaziland have low GDP growth rates.

Countries also show huge difference in terms of the sector having major contribution to their GDP. For example, Sierra Leone (49%), Cameroon (45%), Tanzania (43%), Ghana (37%), Malawi (35%), Uganda (30%) and The Gambia (30%) have pre- dominantly agricultural economies; while Mauritius (70%), Seychelles (67%), South Africa (67%), Kenya (65%), Namibia (58%), The Gambia (55%), Zambia (51%) and Botswana (50%) have high contribution from service sector to their economies. Swaziland (50%), Nigeria (53%), Botswana (46%), Lesotho (43%) have fairly good contribution to GDP from the Industry sector.

For most of the countries, their share in world merchandize and services trade is within the range of 0.00 to 0.05 %. The exceptions are Nigeria (share in world merchandize exports is 0.4 and commercial services export is 0.17) and South Africa (share in world merchandize exports is 0.5 and commercial services export is 0.44). Kenya (0.06) and Mauritius (0.07) have a comparatively better share in world services exports.

For almost all the countries, common import items are foodstuff, machinery, fuel and transportation equipments. Electronics, chemicals, medicines and consumer goods are also exported to many of these countries.

Table 1 : WTO and HDI Status of the African Commonwealth Members’

<sup># The ratio is taken for the period of 2003-05 unless otherwise mentioned.
* Suspension from 1995 to 1999
** Left in 1961, Rejoined 1994</sup>