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.
Continue reading “Growing green in Mozambique”
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?
Continue reading “How to close the gender care gap in Sub Saharan Africa“
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.
Continue reading “Africa’s COP: Where does West Africa stand with respect to the global climate agenda?”
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.
Continue reading “De nouvelles perspectives énergétiques pour l’Afrique”
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.
Continue reading “How women stabilise and grow economies in Africa”
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.
Continue reading “Five ways to build resilience in Nigeria’s education system”
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.
Continue reading “Conflicts are becoming increasingly rural in North and West Africa”
By Miishe Addy, co-Founder and CEO of Jetstream Africa, an e-logistics startup building digital infrastructure for African supply chains.
Growing up, I thought that the women in my family were remarkable. They had strong entrepreneurial instincts, and built businesses from scratch using only their intellect and the resources around them. My eldest aunt founded a thriving restaurant, spun off a catering business, and turned her car into a taxi service while she was at work. Her younger sister founded a crèche and scaled it up to a 200-student primary and secondary school. My great-grandmother, born in the late 1800s, was a self-made businesswoman in Accra and the breadwinner for her family.
Continue reading “How women African entrepreneurs can overcome the “beauty pageant problem””
By Dr. Sangu J. Delle, Chief Executive Officer, CarePoint and Executive Chairman, Golden Palm Investments Corporation
Africa is the world’s youngest continent, with a median age of 19.7 years. The size of the African population will grow from 1.3 billion people today to 2.5 billion in 2050, when 1 in 4 people will be African. Many scholars have debated whether these projections foretell a demographic dividend or a demographic disaster. The answer will lie in how the continent handles myriad challenges, including climate change, energy poverty, the food crisis, education, healthcare, conflicts and the continent’s massive infrastructure gap.
Continue reading “Why it is time to invest in African entrepreneurs”
By Yeo Dossina, Head of Economic Policy and Research, African Union Commission, Arthur Minsat, Head of the OECD Development Centre’s Unit for Africa, Europe and Middle East and Rodrigo Deiana, Consultant, OECD Development Centre
Africa’s value chains hold the key to unlocking its productivity, deepening its economic integration, and strengthening its resilience to shocks. Yet regional value chains accounted for just 2.7% of Africa’s total value chain participation in 2019, compared to 26.4% in Latin America and the Caribbean and 42.9% in developing Asia according to the latest edition of Africa’s Development Dynamics, a joint report by the African Union Commission and the OECD Development Centre.
Continue reading “Why stronger regional value chains can help Africa rebound from economic shocks”