African emerging economies: The leading economies of Africa in the 21st Century

Abstract

Abstract. In the last couple of decades, some African countries have achieved a significant economic improvement even though it is overshadowed by the severe poverty and conflicts in the continent. In fact, some of these countries, such as South Africa, Nigeria, and Egypt are recognized as emerging economies by many international organizations. However, there are many other economies in the continent which achieved an equivalent economic improvement recently. The objective of this study is to assess the progress of all African countries and identify the African Emerging Economies. An index with various measurements which are commonly employed by similar studies is used. Considering, the absence of the topic from the literature, this study may attract further works. The results show that at least there are 15 African economies, including the three biggest ones, which recorded a remarkable progress in the last couple of decades. These countries can be recognized as African Emerging Economies. All of these countries are also categorized as either global emerging or frontier economies by various rating agencies.

Keywords. African emerging, Emerging economies, Frontier economies.

JEL. O10, O55, F02.