Since 2003, Gabon has been pursuing a new development strategy aimed at making its economy less reliant on the oil sector and fostering a more diversified economy driven by the private sector and focused on poverty reduction. This new development paradigm requires the deepening of reforms in order to create an enabling environment for private sector development and the appropriate conditions for economic diversification while promoting a policy whereby the fruits of growth are redistributed to the poorer segments of the population. Gabon's economy has picked up as a response to this strategy and recorded a rate of growth of 5.6% in 2007 – the highest level achieved in the past five years and one which exceeds its population growth rate, estimated at 2.2%. This growth has primarily been driven by the non-oil sector, where real GDP grew by 6.2% in 2007 compared with 3.4% for the oil sector.

Development Policy

The conservation of natural resources is one of the main priorities. This trend is in keeping with the expected structural change in the Gabonese economy, whose performance is severely hampered by its heavy dependence on a single product. The focusing of economic activity on oil production has created "Dutch disease" effects by marginalizing other strategic sectors - agriculture, forestry and manufacturing - that help to reduce poverty. For the first time, Gabon satisfactorily implemented a reform programme with the IMF (completed in July 2005) and is now deepening these reforms  under a three-year Stand-By Arrangement (2007-2010) whose overall implementation is satisfactory. In spite of the tangible progress made by the country, especially over the last three years, there are still several major constraints on the achievement of sustained economic growth, namely:

• Weaknesses in governance
• Inefficient public expenditure system
• Weak institutional capacity
• High cost of factors of production
• The fragility of the macroeconomic framework as a result of the economy's heavy reliance on the oil sector alone (which, in 2007, generated 51% of GDP, 63% of fiscal revenue and 82% of export revenue) despite the country's strong potential in terms of forestry, environmental, fishery and mining resources.

Bank Group Strategy

The Bank Group’s 2006-2010 strategy for the country aims at:

• Increasing budgetary resources by supporting structural reforms designed to improve the efficiency of public expenditure, the quality of basic services as well as the financing of investment projects in the areas of infrastructure and basic services
• Improving the performance of Bank interventions to maximize their impact on the living conditions of the poor
• Building the capacity of national structures and improving Bank knowledge on the main growth drivers through economic and sector works as well as through grants to finance capacity building activities
• Developing synergies with the other technial and financial partners (TFPs) in order to heighten the impact of Bank assistance 
• Stepping up dialogue with the government and TFPs in order to improve the efficacy of Bank assistance