Africa’s tepid economic recovery and slow COVID- 19 vaccine roll-out programme is likely to weigh on the scale of investment in 2021, UNCTAD’s World Investment Report 2021 has warned. After falling 16 per cent in 2020, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) flows to the continent is projected to grow by only five per cent in 2021, lower than both the global and developing country projected growth rates, the report said. Foreign investment fell to $40 billion in 2020 from $47 billion in 2019, the report said, as economic and health challenges due to the pandemic combined with low prices of energy commodities weighed heavily on foreign investment to the continent. While Egypt received the lion’s share of the funds, it was still 35 per cent lower than in 2019, the report said. The report showed that commodity-dependent countries were affected more severely than non-resource-based economies. “The challenging environment affected all aspects of foreign investment,” said UNCTAD’s director of investment and enterprise, James Zhan.
