L’impact à court terme de la crise Covid19 sur l’industrie manufacturière en Afrique : évaluations d’experts africains

The purpose of this document is to provide more details on a survey conducted among African experts during April and May, the main results of which being published in September in a paper in the journal Secteur Privé et Développement (Goujon et Mien, 2020) and relayed by Jeune Afrique. This survey focuses on the short-term impact of the health crisis on the manufacturing sector and was intended to supplement information that remained partial on the immediate situation of countries that are poorly covered by international reports and national studies and surveys. These African experts, most of whom are economists, academics, or senior government officials, were contacted using part of CERDI's network of alumni from continuing education and doctoral programs. We received feedback from 88 respondents. In terms of results, in general, these experts consider that the impact on manufacturing industry is negative, and that production for export is more significantly impacted than production for the local market. Production is more negatively (but less significantly) affected in urban (vs. rural) areas, in the formal (vs. informal) sector, and for large (vs. small) firms. With regard to product sub-sectors, not surprisingly, only pharmaceutical production seems to be able to benefit from the crisis, while the sub-sectors "food, beverages" and "machinery, equipment, transport equipment", followed by "building materials, cement" and "textiles, clothing, leather" suffer most in the short term.