Central Africa

With the exception of the tiny island republic of São Tomé and Príncipe, all other states did not have what could be called an ordinary year. The atmosphere of contin-ued crisis dragged on, with armed conflict and its repercussions impacting heavily on an ever-growing share of the population of the sub-region. After two particularly difficult years in terms of public finances, the region looked somewhat more stable financially, not least because reserves could be built up to face any future shocks. But fiscal consolidation translated into cuts in public investment. Without substan-tial progress in structural reforms, including a diversification of sources of income, economic growth continued to depend too strongly on oil income for five out of eight countries. Both the risk of a further deterioration of the highly problematic regional security situation and the prospect of a crisis of the world economy, with a concomitant slump in the oil price on the world market, did not permit a lot of op-timism. Considerable uncertainty about the future of the common currency within cemac and the logical, but not materialising, dilution of cemac within ceeacwere further sources of concern. Such major reforms at a supranational level could theoretically be drivers for new forms of cooperation among countries and econ-omies. However, most governments did not invest in regional cooperation, as they were preoccupied by their grave domestic problems: growing contestation and con-tinued armed conflict.