The war in Ukraine comes at a time when African countries are still struggling to recover from the destabilizing effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic, which caused deep economic regression, significant loss of productivity, worsening inequalities, planetary pressures, and in some cases security challenges. It is threatening to derail development progress in African countries, pushing the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and the aspirations of the African Union’s Agenda 2063 further out of reach.

The direct impacts of the crisis in Africa include trade disruption, food and fuel price spikes, macroeconomic instability, and security challenges. The crisis pushed the price of a barrel of Brent oil above the $100 dollar mark for the first time since 2014. At the same time, food grain prices continued to rise even higher as supply disruptions from Russia and Ukraine (actual and anticipated) rocked global markets. Food and fuel account for over one-third of the consumer price index in most African countries. The pass-through of consequent inflation will be swift and hard-hitting, especially for vulnerable groups like women and children.

There are also indirect impacts of the crisis to consider, which include imported inflation, difficult energy transitions, and a potential geopolitical realignment. To fully diversify, Europe will have to search for new providers to fill the remaining two thirds gap. Africa’s gas producers, like Algeria, Libya and Nigeria, are well positioned to fill this gap. But there are two immediate consequences of the increase in the global demand for oil and gas. First, it could undermine progress towards ensuring a just transition to sustainable energy sources which are much more environmentally friendly. Second, it could limit the continent’s access to natural gas in the near-term as African countries export their gas supplies to Europe.

The impact of the war could push Africa into serious debt distress, making countries less likely to meet their debt obligations. It could also increase inequality because high food and fuel prices typically hit the most vulnerable households hardest. Reduced access to electricity and cooking fuel would make more households multidimensionally poor, while shrinking budgets may trigger households to dispose of their assets, thus reducing their ability to cushion themselves from future shocks. Overall, these indirect effects would constrain overall economic activity and could trigger social tensions and unrest.

The crisis appears to be a harbinger of a Cold War redux, which could undermine democratization across Africa and fuel political instability. A global geo-political realignment could also retard economic development through the adoption of economic policies and ideologies that are not pro-poor, planet-friendly and equitable. Indirectly, economic stress could trigger violent protests and unconstitutional transfers of political power. Moreover, there appears to be a threat to multilateralism, which could hamper the ability of development partners to provide consistent support that would put African countries back on track to attain shared global development aspirations. Weakened multilateralism would unravel significant development progress attained over the past decades and roll back gains made in fighting COVID-19 globally.

This is why the development community, including bilateral and multilateral partners, must redouble their efforts to provide adequate and timely support across the continent. Priority actions to protect development gains in Africa would be:

1. Prioritize immediate efforts to expand the fiscal space in African countries and stabilize African economies via enhanced bilateral assistance, innovative multilateral initiatives (including the expeditious re-channeling of new sources of funds such as the Special Drawing Rights), increased liquidity (e.g. through access to central bank swaps or access to IMF emergency windows) and debt relief (e.g. addressing the slow pace of the Common Framework that has only started working with Chad and Zambia on their respective credit committees).

2. Strengthen resilience to global shocks by reducing Africa’s dependency on food and fuel imports, accelerating access to energy based on a just transition, de-risking critical investments in technology and infrastructure, and promoting innovative approaches to entrepreneurship.

3. Foster structural economic transformation in Africa by intensifying support to regional integration and economic diversification, and mobilizing resources to fill strategic infrastructure, health and education gaps.