The forgotten rise in West Africa

[Zhang Chenglianf/China Daily]

The region ravaged by the Ebola epidemic has the economic potential to prevent future medical crises

News out of Africa has been dominated lately by international efforts to stop the spread of the Ebola virus that has killed more than 4,000 in a corner of West Africa.

Ebola hemorrhagic fever is not only imposing devastating human losses in the three hardest-hit countries - Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The World Bank has warned that Ebola could cost the West African economy $32.6 billion by the end of 2015 unless it is quickly contained.

And, as reported in The Guardian, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said the epidemic shows "that weak public health infrastructure, institutions and systems in many fragile countries are a threat not only to their own citizens but also to their trading partners and the world at large.

"The enormous economic cost of the current outbreak to the affected countries and the world could have been avoided by prudent ongoing investment in health system strengthening."

Put another way, the virus shows why the story that has been largely set aside for now, that of "Africa rising", is so important.

Economically strong nations have resources and institutions that are better able to cope early on with disease outbreaks, or, indeed, to prevent them in the first place.

The World Bank noted that successful containment of Ebola in Nigeria and Senegal showed that it is possible to limit the spread of Ebola with existing health system capacity and a resolute policy response, according to The Guardian.

While bringing Ebola under control in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone at this point is going to take huge amounts of international assistance, the future could be different. Indeed, the region now shaken by crisis has been on the verge of an economic takeoff.

While average GDP growth in Africa as a whole was some 5 percent in 2013, growth in West Africa, driven by rising commodity-related investments, was higher, at 6.7 percent, according to the United Nations' figures.

Liberia and Sierra Leone, which had been devastated by a decade-long civil war ending early this century, instead by last year were among the world's top-10 fastest-growing economies, according to The Economist.

Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have vast iron ore deposits that could play a major part in the story of the continent's emerging steel mill capacity expansion, taking place in Africa's larger economic hubs including South Africa, Ethiopia and Nigeria.

West Africa, particularly Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, is so rich in iron ore it has been dubbed "the new Pilbara", after the Pilbara region of western Australia that provides much of the iron ore for China's industrialization and helped buoy Australia's economy during the 2008 international financial crisis.

While war and political unpredictability had long stalled development of the region's iron ore reserves, post-war regional stability and political change in Guinea have changed this.