Water and food in Africa

📈Reading beyond trend lines The last blog ended with the the figure below showing precipitation and GDP seeming to have a relationship. The question posed was are African economies reliant on rainfall. The main aim of this blog is to recognise that most African countries agriculture is a large part of the GDP for example  37.57% of Ethiopias GDP  constitutes of agriculture however, rainfall cannot be deemed as the single most significant factor causing economic downturns and in fact political climates may be playing a significant role in the economies. The example of Zimbabwe will be used to demonstrate this point.  Figure 1: Data sourced from The World Bank . Chart made in Flourish.  GDP as a political tool  The IPCC reported that rainfall plays a significant role in reducing growth in Africa. Whilst rainfall is having impacts on GDP to a certain extent this is being used to cover up for poor governance in Zimbabwe. In 2000 the government of Zimbabwe blamed the economic downturn