The African growth narrative has over the last few years captured the imagination of many businesses and governments. Following an uncertain world economic outlook post the global financial crisis (GFC), the continent was seen as the last growth frontier for investors and the second-fastest growth region after Asia. But a new World Bank report forecasts a sub-Saharan Africa GDP growth drop in 2015. Hannah Edinger, Associate Director, Frontier Advisory Deloitte looks at what this means for the continent.

The business interests of both emerging and traditional partners ran parallel to an improving reputation and brand of the continent. Africa has been portrayed as a commercial opportunity, rather than a developmental burden. This was supported by peace and stability especially during the first decade of the 21st century, barring the socio-political instability following the Arab Spring events in North Africa, and more recent health (the Ebola epidemic in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone), terrorism (Boko Haram in Nigeria and Al-Shabaab in the Horn of Africa) and conflict (Central African Republic and South Sudan) threats in the region.

Despite some of these (at times arguably localized) setbacks, Africa's growth performance has been noteworthy. According to data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) averaged 5.6 percent growth over the 2000-14 period. This peaked in 2007 at 7.6 percent at the height of the commodity price super cycle, and dropped to a still resilient 4.1 percent in 2009 on account of the headwinds from the GFC.

Although in the post-GFC period countries managed to bounce back with relative ease on account of internal policy buffers as well as China's infrastructure stimulus spend, which underpinned resumed commodity demand, the current short-term outlook is less rosy. The World Bank in the October 2015 version of its Africa's Pulse report expects SSA's GDP growth to drop from 4.6 percent in 2014 to an estimated 3.7 percent in 2015 - a new low since 2009.

The bank argues that global developments (including an oversupply of oil and other commodities resulting in persistent lower prices, weaker economic activity in both Europe and emerging markets, particularly China, as well as tighter global lending conditions and potentially higher U.S. interest rates), coupled with African domestic challenges (continued power supply deficits, economies overly reliant on single resource exports, deteriorating trade and external imbalances, as well as fiscal positions particularly in oil-exporting countries) are driving this trend.

Given the relatively large contribution of Nigeria, South Africa and Angola to the SSA output - these top three economies in 2014 made up more than 62 percent of SSA's GDP - the impact of their slower expansion weighs down on the whole region's short-term outlook. Nigeria is expected to record 4-percent economic growth, Angola 3.5 percent and South Africa a mere 1.4 percent, according to the IMF (again positioning South Africa among the worst 10 performers in SSA).

As a result, diverging performances at the country level are increasingly visible, especially between resource-rich and resource-poor economies. The World Bank's report points out a number of lower-income economies that are showing resilient growth trajectories, especially those investing in large-scale infrastructure (energy and transport projects), and where rising consumer spending is becoming an important driver of growth. These top five performers - Cote d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Rwanda and Tanzania - are all expected to grow in excess of 7 percent on average over the 2015-17 period. In contrast to SSA's top three economies by size, the top five growth performers constitute only a mere 9.5 percent of SSA's output.

With a global outlook that is marred by uncertainties, and with looming risks and rising macro-economic vulnerabilities across the continent - including deteriorating trade and fiscal deficits, rising government debt levels and currency depreciations - African net resource exporters in particular will need to increasingly refocus their often resource-dependent business models and value propositions. This is particularly in light of persistently low commodity prices, subdued demand for key commodities, and slow global growth into the foreseeable future.

This poses various domestic policy trade-offs for African policymakers to balance short-term response measures to negative shocks with long-term economic development and diversification pursuits. It will thus increasingly require countries to differentiate themselves from their peers based on their demonstration of and relative attractiveness of good policies and good governance, rather than yesteryear's overreliance on the mere extraction of raw materials.