Niger Economic Update 2024

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Table of Contents

• 1 . ECONOMIC AND POVERTY DEVELOPMENTS AND OUTLOOK 3
• 2 . INVESTING IN EDUCATION FOR INCLUSIVE GROWTH 3
• 3 . ANNEX 3
• 4 . REFERENCES 3
• TABLE OF CONTENTS 3
• TABLE OF BOXES FIGURES TABLES 4
• Franc de la communauté financière en Afrique Ecoles Normale Société Nigérienne dElectricité Programme dAnalyse des Systèmes Educatifs Société de raffinage de Zinder LUnion monétaire ouest-africaine 7
• ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS 7
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 8
• EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 9
• Economic and poverty developments and outlook 9
• Fiscal Cost of Improving Access to Education 11
• ECONOMIC AND POVERTY DEVELOPMENTS AND OUTLOOK 15
• 1.1 Development Context 15
• The development context is characterized by high demographic pressures vulnerability to climate shocks and recent political instability. 15
• In Niger 2023 was marked by a severe political crisis that triggered regional economic and financial sanctions and a disruption in external financing. 16
• The crisis is estimated to have significantly reduced GDP growth to 2.0 percent in 2023 -1.7 percent per capita. 16
• 1.2 Recent Economic and Poverty Developments 16
• The sanctions significantly disrupted the external accounts 19
• The financial sanctions led to a liquidity crisis and a deterioration of portfolio quality in the banking sector 21
• The fiscal performance in 2023 was characterized by budget cuts accumulation of arrears and use of parallel systems for public finance management 22
• The poverty rate at national poverty line remained unchanged during 2018-2021. 24
• Elevated food prices have also led to a rise in food insecurity intensifying the humanitarian situation. 26
• With sanctions lifted large-scale oil production and exports effective and a significant share of arrears cleared growth is set to recover but the outlook is subject to significant downside risks. 28
• 1.3 Economic and Poverty Outlook 28
• The national budget for 2024 is underpinned by increased revenues from large-scale oil exports but may not be realistic in terms of revenue or financing sources 29
• The extreme poverty rate is expected to decline by 2024-26 in line with projected growth rates. 31
• INVESTING IN EDUCATION FOR INCLUSIVE GROWTH 37
• Increasing access to education is challenged by limited and poor school infrastructure growing insecurity and heavy demographic pressures 37
• 2.1 Sectoral context Key challenges in the education 37
• Weak pedagogical environment shortages of educational resources and underperforming teachers contribute to poor learning outcomes 39
• The governments agenda include replacing all CPs with permanent classrooms hiring more permanent teachers and improving teachers training 40
• 2.2 Governments reform agenda and costs 40
• Increasing the number of student teachers entering teacher training colleges. 41
• Improve the tenure and salary of graduates of teacher training schools at the beginning of their careers. Implementation of the plan to integrate contract teachers into the civil service. 41
• The governments program to replace all CPs train and hire more qualified teachers and integrate contract teachers into the civil service could cost up to 0.26 percent of GDP per year on average 42
• It will cost a total of 10.3 percent of GDP to build all the new classrooms needed over the next 30 years 2024-2054 in addition to replacing CPs if enrollment rates remain constant 44
• 2.3 Reform scenarios with associated costs 44
• A more comprehensive policy agenda to improve access to quality education is estimated to cost about 1.2 percent of GDP on average every year in addition to current spending 46
• ANNEX 51
• REFERENCES 53