Category: Africa

Car mechanic in uniform checking car in automobile
Africa, Building resilience

It’s time to develop better automotive value chains in Africa

By Dave Coffey, Chief Executive Officer · AAAM[i] – African Association of Automotive Manufacturers

Where is the last frontier for significant automotive development and growth in the world? It’s Africa. The challenge then is, how can local skills and raw materials be better allocated to balance contributions to global supply chains and Africa’s own industries?

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Development Matters
Digitalisation west Africa education
Africa, Building resilience, Français

Le numérique au service de l’éducation en Afrique de l’Ouest

Par Guy Mehou, Économiste Macro-Financier & Charles Millogo, Responsable de l‘Économie Numérique, La Banque Ouest Africaine de Développement (BOAD)

On entend souvent dire qu’avec Internet, l’accès au savoir est simplifié. Les possibilités données aujourd’hui au plus grand nombre de faire des recherches sur Internet ou de se former via des MOOC (cours en ligne ouverts et massifs) ont significativement accru l’accès à des contenus. Avec Internet, la connaissance n’est plus réservée à une élite mais est dorénavant l’affaire de tous. De plus, une part accrue de ce savoir est disponible gratuitement, pour peu que l’on dispose d’une connexion Internet, et donc à la portée de chacun. Pour un enseignant, donner un cours en ligne permet d’avoir une audience décuplée et pour un étudiant, suivre un cours en ligne permet de choisir le moment privilégié pour s’instruire.

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Development Matters
debt
Africa, Reviving multilateralism

Why today’s debt crisis requires a different kind of thinking

By David McNair, Executive Director for Global Policy at The ONE Campaign and Non-Resident Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Daouda Sembene, CGD Distinguished Nonresident Fellow and AfriCatalyst CEO

African countries have more than doubled their debt stocks in the last decade. In an era of historically low interest rates that made sense, given the continent’s massive infrastructure needs, high security spending and rising social expenditure driven by a rapidly growing population. But that era is now over. 

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Development Matters
Mozambique green transition
Africa, Green transition

Growing green in Mozambique

By Köeti Serôdio, Programme Manager Resilience (Humanitarian, Climate Action & Social Protection), Growing Green, Embassy of Ireland

Marta Uetela is a young Mozambican who is transforming the lives of people with disabilities. She founded the revolutionary green start-up BioMec, which developed the world’s first prosthetics and eco-wheelchairs made of recycled plastic marine litter.

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Development Matters
Woman carrying water, Uganda
Africa, Gender, Women and Girls, New social contract

How to close the gender care gap in Sub Saharan Africa

By Madina M. Guloba, Development Economist and Senior Research Fellow at the Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC) in Kampala, Uganda

Due to gender bias and the patriarchal nature of many African economies, care work, especially unpaid, is considered a woman’s prerogative. This is often intertwined with negative social and cultural norms. In this context, is paternity leave a realistic solution to closing the gender care gap?

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Development Matters
Banani, Mali - December, 30, 2014: Local people work in the countryside near Banani village
Africa, Green transition

Africa’s COP: Where does West Africa stand with respect to the global climate agenda?

By Brilé Anderson, OECD Sahel and West Africa Club Secretariat

The year’s COP27 is being called ‘Africa’s COP’. Even though African countries bear little responsibility for global emissions, they bear some of the harshest impacts. But far from being passive observers, they are active participants in the global climate agenda.

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Development Matters
Africa, Français, Green transition

De nouvelles perspectives énergétiques pour l’Afrique

Par Arnaud Rouget, Directeur du programme Afrique de l’Agence Internationale de l’Énergie

La pandémie a eu de lourdes conséquences sur le développement énergétique de l’Afrique. Alors que, depuis 2013, le nombre de personnes ayant accès à l’électricité augmentait – mettant ainsi le continent sur la bonne voie pour atteindre l’objectif de développement durable n°7 (« Énergie propre et d’un coût abordable ») d’ici 2030 – ce progrès s’est inversé pour la première fois en 2020. Ainsi, aujourd’hui, 600 millions d’Africains vivent sans accès à l’électricité.

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Development Matters
Photo by 2Photo Pots on Unsplash
Africa, New social contract

How women stabilise and grow economies in Africa

By Anzetse Were, Senior Economist at FSD Kenya

Women’s contributions to economic output and baseline economic welfare tend to be underestimated due the double injustice of unpaid care work and unpaid work. This double injustice denies women of the compensation, reward, recognition and upward income mobility that come with performing economic tasks – even when the output of those tasks is counted in official calculations. Most often, unpaid care work is neither formally counted as economic output, nor is it compensated. Instead, it is seen as women’s responsibility, due to their gender. This ultimately means that the immense amount of time, effort and skill women (and girls) put into the economy is invisible.

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Development Matters
School children in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria
Africa, New social contract

Five ways to build resilience in Nigeria’s education system

By Adedeji Adeniran, Director of Research at the Centre for the Study of the Economies of Africa (CSEA) and Thelma Obiakor, PhD Candidate at the London School of Economics and Political Science

COVID-19 has compounded a long-standing learning crisis in many African countries, where millions of children were already out of school before the pandemic.

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Development Matters
Rural conflicts Africa
Africa, Building resilience

Conflicts are becoming increasingly rural in North and West Africa

By Steven M. Radil, U.S. Air Force Academy, Olivier Walther, University of Florida, Nicholas Dorward, University of Bristol, Matthew Pflaum, University of Florida and Marie Trémolières, Sahel and West Africa Club (SWAC), OECD

Political violence is moving away from cities in North and West Africa, even as urban populations continue to grow at an unprecedented pace in the region. More than half of the violent events observed in 2021 took place in rural areas, against 20% a decade ago. The emergence of Jihadist insurgencies in the Sahel and its southern peripheries explains this ruralisation of conflict that affects a growing number of civilians and border regions.

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Development Matters