SSA meaning in Country Specific ?

Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. According to the United Nations, it consists of all African countries and territories that are fully or partially south of the Sahara. While the United Nations geoscheme for Africa excludes Sudan from its definition of sub-Saharan Africa, the African Union's definition includes Sudan but instead excludes Mauritania.

It contrasts with North Africa, which is frequently grouped within the MENA ("Middle East and North Africa") region, and most of whose states are members of the Arab League (largely overlapping with the term "Arab world"). The states of Somalia, Djibouti, Comoros, and the Arab-majority Mauritania (and sometimes Sudan) are, however, geographically considered part of sub-Saharan Africa, although they are members of the Arab League as well. The United Nations Development Program lists 46 of Africa's 54 countries as "sub-Saharan", excluding Algeria, Djibouti, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Somalia, Sudan and Tunisia.

Since probably 3500 BCE, the Saharan and sub-Saharan regions of Africa have been separated by the extremely harsh climate of the sparsely populated Sahara, forming an effective barrier interrupted by only the Nile in Sudan, though navigation on the Nile was blocked by the river's cataracts. The Sahara pump theory explains how flora and fauna (including Homo sapiens) left Africa to penetrate the Middle East and beyond. African pluvial periods are associated with a Wet Sahara phase, during which larger lakes and more rivers existed.