March 2024 inflation is the 6th highest in Sub-Saharan Africa – World Bank

Ghana’s March 2024 inflation of 25.8% has been marked as the 6th highest in Sub-Saharan Africa. This is according to the April 2024 World Bank Africa Pulse report.

The report said that about 90.0% of the countries in the region (42 of 47) are projected to have lower inflation in 2024 (relative to the previous year).

However, the rate of inflation is expected to be lower than the pre-pandemic period for only seven countries.

Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, Malawi, Nigeria, and Ethiopia came 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th respectively in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The report revealed that food inflation (29.6%) was higher than headline inflation (25.8%).

Inflation is an important economic indicator that impacts all sectors of the economy. The African continent has seen a spike in inflation in recent years, which has pushed interest rates up and worsened the cost of doing business and living.

The report said though inflation is cooling in most Sub-Saharan African countries, it remains high.

“Additionally, a group of countries in the region still exhibit persistently high rates of inflation (above target) and, in some cases, these rates have not yet peaked—although this group is gradually becoming smaller. The number of countries with a two-digit (or more) average annual rate of inflation is set to decline to 13 this year (down from a peak of 19 countries in 2022)”, it pointed out.

For those 13 countries, it mentioned that the median inflation rate has dropped modestly from 27% in 2023 to 22.5 percent in 2024.

Ghana’s inflation for March 2024 increased to 25.8% from the 23.2% recorded in February 2024, indicating a 2.6 percentage point increase.

According to figures from the Ghana Statistical Service(GSS), non-food inflation went up by 22.6%, while food inflation increased to 29.6%

Food, non-alcoholic beverages, and transport were identified as the main drivers of the increase in overall inflation for March 2024.

“In March 2024, the rate of inflation stood at 25.8%, year-on-year inflation relative to 23.2 % recorded for February 2024. This indicates that we have seen a surge in the rate of inflation by 2.6%, increasing from 23.2% to 25.8% for March 2024.”

“Disaggregating this from the food and non-food perspective, the rate of inflation for food was 29.6% relative to non-food 22.6%. Both food and non-food inflation have seen a 2.6% increase in its rate of inflation between February and March 2024,” he stated.

There was a decline in inflation in February 2024 with 23.2%, which represented a 0.3 percentage point decrease from the 23.5% recorded in January.