Expectations for economic growth this year in sub-Saharan Africa have plummeted to just 1.5 percent following sharp downgrades to forecasts for Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Angola in the past few weeks.
The figure, a fraction of the 4.2 percent growth foreseen at the start of the year, would represent the weakest pan-continental growth since 1994 and mean a cut in income per head in the world's poorest region, given annual population growth of around 2.5 per cent.
Although most economists expect a pick-up in growth in 2017, expectations for next year have also fallen sharply in recent months, from 4.2 per cent in June to 3.2 per cent, according to consensus estimates collated by FocusEconomics, as the first chart shows.
The IMF now predicts that 2017 will be the second successive year in which sub-Saharan growth will undershoot global growth - widening inequality and returning to the pattern of the 1990s, when Africa routinely underperformed global norms - before a predicted recovery thereafter, as the second chart shows.
John Ashbourne, Africa economist at Capital Economics, says: "The region's economic downturn has still yet to bottom out. Major economies across Africa either remained weak or deteriorated over the past few months. GDP per capita will be stagnant or falling in a lot of countries again next year."
Dirina Mançellari, senior economist at FocusEconomics, adds: "The [sub-Saharan] economy decelerated in the first half of 2016 and monthly indicators from major economies point to another weak expansion in the second half."
In the past month alone, consensus forecasts for GDP growth this year have tumbled from 1.8 per cent to 1.5 per cent, according to FocusEconomics' data. This was driven by a 0.75-percentage point slide in expectations for Nigeria, the region's largest economy, where contraction of 1.1 per cent is now pencilled in, which would be the worst outcome since the IMF's records began in 1991.
Growth expectations have also fallen by more than 30 basis points in Angola, the third-largest economy, which is now seen expanding by just 0.9 per cent, the bleakest out-turn since a calamitous recession in 1993, and Ivory Coast, where at least growth is expected to still be a punchy 8.1 per cent.
The past month has also seen expectations for growth in Nigeria in 2017 revised down from 2.5 to 1.9 per cent, with hopes for Ghana, Angola and Kenya also turning bleaker, as the final chart indicates. Overall, forecasts for nine of the 13 sub-Saharan countries covered by FocusEconomics have been cut, with the other four left unchanged.
The Kenyan downgrade is notable because, as a net commodity importer, it has proved a rare bright spot on the continent since raw material prices tumbled in 2014. However, even it now appears to be succumbing to weakness.
One concern is the country's Banking Amendment Act, which came into force in August and which caps lending rates at four percentage points above the central bank's benchmark rate, currently 10 per cent.
The most recent figures show lending growth in Kenya slowed to 4.6 per cent year-on-year in October, well below the 19.7 per cent rate witnessed in October 2015. Mr Ashbourne notes that credit growth was already slowing before the announcement of the cap, so it is as yet unclear what difference it has made.
Nevertheless, he says "there are some worrying signs" given the sharpness of the slowdown and the fact that other countries that have implemented lending rate caps have tended to see declining credit and weaker economic growth.
Razia Khan, chief Africa economist at Standard Chartered, argues that banks "have little reason to extend greater credit to potentially riskier borrowers in a slowing economy, for even lower returns".
As a result, "the slowdown in credit to small businesses is likely to have an especially pronounced impact on employment trends over time".
Mr Ashbourne also raises concerns over a seeming divide between solid economic data from Kenya and a recent spate of rather less impressive "granular" data points.
Elsewhere, Nigeria's economic crisis "remains very grave", Mr Ashbourne says, with the economy contracting by 2.2 per cent in the year to the third quarter, an acceleration of the rate seen three months earlier.
Oil production, which has fallen to a 33-year low amid an insurgency in the Niger Delta, probably fell further still in November, he believes, while "other available activity data for Q4 also paint a pretty bleak picture". Despite this, he forecasts an end to recession in 2017, helped by the oil sector. "Oil production was down 20 per cent in year to Q3. Provided it at least stabilises, which it should do or possibly even pick up a bit, that should give a tailwind to the economy," he argues.
Optimism is in relatively short supply elsewhere, though. South Africa, the region's second-largest economy, remains in the doldrums, amid consensus growth forecasts of 0.4 per cent this year and 1.2 per cent next and a shaky political backdrop.
Unemployment hit a 13-year high of 27.1 percent in the third quarter, with almost one in five working-age people having been actively seeking work for more than a year. Capital Economics' GDP tracker suggests the economy may even have contracted in seasonally adjusted quarter-on-quarter terms in Q3.
Nevertheless, Mr Ashbourne expects a modest pick up in growth in 2017, arguing "a lot of things went wrong this year. It shouldn't be hard to do better next year."
As a big exporter, Angola has been hit by weak oil prices. On top of this, Bloomberg data suggest oil output fell 13 per cent between September and October. Moreover, the kwanza has fallen to around 500-600 to the dollar on the black market, he says, a far cry from the official rate of 165, pushing inflation to a 12-year high of 40 per cent.
A further pan-African concern is the impact of the election of Donald Trump.
"Fears that Africa will slide down the foreign priority list of America's next government have decreased investors' risk appetite for the African markets," says Ms Mançellari.
"In particular, there are concerns that the US will decrease its foreign aid in the region and that the current bilateral trade agreements will not be extended under Trump's presidency."
