Some 15 million people in Africa were pushed into poverty in 2022 due to high food and energy prices, the African Development Bank (AfBD) has reported. However, the Bank indicated that the poverty effect of energy price increases was higher than food prices. This was because the energy impact was fully passed through household income, while the negative impact of high food prices was partially offset by increases in household income from net sellers. In Africa, the additional number of people falling into extreme poverty due to energy price inflation is estimated at 10.2 million, bringing the combined poverty effect of soaring food and energy prices to about 15 million people,” the bank noted. This was contained in the Bank’s 2023 West Africa Economic Outlook report, which noted that the region’s average poverty rate increased by 10 per cent between 2019 and 2022. It was also observed that relative to the counterfactual scenario, the international poverty rate based on the US$ 2.1...