Africa

“If we get our policy, politics, and institutions right, African economies and society could gain greater energy and food security, built on green competition and taking strong action on climate change.“ —Professor Chuks Okereke, Director of the Centre for Climate Change and Development at Alex Ekwueme Federal University

Vera Songwe, Chair of the Liquidity and Sustainability Facility, and former Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa, on the multiple crises facing African countries.

Entretien avec Gilles Yabi, directeur exécutif du Think Tank ouest-africain WATHI, sur la sécurité alimentaire en Afrique

An interview with Gilles Yabi, executive director of the West African Think Tank WATHI, on food security in Africa

Fragility and Resilience in Green Development in Africa: Intersections and Trade-offs

An interview with INET Global Commissioner Winnie Byanyima

An overview of the current digital access landscape in Africa

The youth paradox is accentuated by the effects of Covid-19, while the concrete short- and medium-term prospects for young people remain unclear.

A review of regional integration in Africa

An interview with Dr. Ibrahim Mayaki, CEO of the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD)

An interview with John Nkengasong, Director of Africa CDC, about how a coordinated response to COVID-19 in Africa has proven to be effective

An interview with the Industrial Development Advisor in the Office of the Director-General of the South African Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC).

In this interview, Dr. Folashadé Soulé and Dr. Camilla Toulmin speak with Pr. Mzukisi Qobo. Pr Qobo is the Head of the Wits School of Governance, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa.

In this interview, Dr. Folashadé Soulé and Dr. Camilla Toulmin discuss with Nanjala Nyabola, a writer and researcher based in Nairobi, Kenya. Nanjala’s work focuses on the intersection between technology, media, and society. She is currently the Director of Advox, the digital rights programme at Global Voices. Nanjala has held numerous research associate positions including with the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), and other institutions, while also working as a research lead for several projects on human rights broadly and digital rights specifically around the world.

Dr Kandeh Yumkella is a development economist, founder and CEO of The Energy Nexus Network (TENN), a regional hub for sustainable energy solutions and serves as a Member of Parliament in Sierra Leone. Previously Dr Yumkella served as Under-Secretary-General and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All and founding chief executive officer for the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) Initiative (2013–2015). He also served as Director-General of the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO, 2005–2013), mobilising global consensus for SDG7 and 9. He is a member of the High-Level Group of the Africa-Europe Foundation, co-chair of the Africa Europe Foundation Strategy Group on Energy, and member of various international advisory bodies, boards, and commissions.

An interview with young migrants living in Mali’s capital city of Bamako

An interview with African development specialist Bara Guèye

Un entretien avec Bara Guèye

“We’re building a data system, because you can’t really manage a city if you don’t know who’s there and what’s in it.”

While Africa’s “premature deindustrialization” appears to be the dominant global narrative, recent analysis of the data suggests that de-industrialization is not the common experience for the majority of African countries

In this interview, Folashadé Soulé and Camilla Toulmin speak with Carl Manlan, the Chief Operating Officer of the Ecobank Foundation - responsible for Ecobank’s social impact engagement with the communities in which the bank operates in Africa – on the role of African philanthropy and corporate social responsibility in the response to COVID-19 on the continent.

Dans le cadre de cet entretien, Mr. Mossadeck Bally, C.E.O, Azalai Hotels Group et membre du GRAIN (Groupe de Réflexion, d’Actions et d’Initiatives Novatrices) revient sur les impacts économiques de la pandémie du COVID-19 sur son groupe hôtelier, le rôle du secteur privé malien dans le plan de relance économique, l’emploi des jeunes et les solutions qui doivent être apportées à la crise politique au Mali.

In this interview, Mr. Mossadeck Bally, a Malian businessman and CEO of Azalai Hotels Group and member of GRAIN (Group of Reflection, Actions and Innovative Initiatives) discusses the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on his hotel group, the role of the Malian private sector in the economic recovery plan, youth employment and the solutions that must be provided to the political crisis in Mali.

In this interview, Folashadé Soulé and Camilla Toulmin discuss with Edward K. Brown, Senior Director, Research and Advisory services at the African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET) based in Accra, Ghana, on the effects of COVID-19 on regional integration and economic transformation in Africa, and the role of ACET and African think tanks in advising African governments respond to the crisis.

During this interview, Professor Kako Nubukpo, Dean of the Faculty of Economics at the University of Lomé, Togo and former Minister of Prospective and Evaluation of Public Policy of Togo considers the economic and social impact of the COVID-19 crisis and its repercussions on monetary policy and fiscal reforms underway in West and Central Africa today.

Dans le cadre de cet entretien, Pr Kako Nubukpo, Doyen de la Faculté des Sciences Economiques et de Gestion (FASEG) de l’Université de Lomé au Togo, et ancien Ministre de la Prospective et de l’Evaluation des politiques publiques du Togo, revient sur l’impact économique et social de la crise du COVID-19 au Togo et sur ses répercussions sur les politiques économiques dont les réformes monétaires et fiscales en cours en Afrique de l’Ouest et Centrale.

Chioma Agwuegbo of TechHer Nigeria, talks to Folashadé Soulé and Herbert Mba Aki about how the pandemic is impacting young people in Nigeria, especially young women, and how African youth are tackling the crisis.

In this conversation with Folashadé Soulé and Camilla Toulmin, Pr Njuguna Ndung’u, a Kenyan economist, Director of the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), a pan-African organization devoted to the advancement of economic policy research and training in sub-Saharan Africa, and former Governor of the Central Bank of Kenya (2007-2015) analyses how the pandemic creates more fragility in African economies, but also how reforms could be implemented during this crisis; and the urgent need for investment in strong health institutional capacities

In this conversation with Folashadé Soulé and Camilla Toulmin, Pr Takyiwaa Manuh analyses how the pandemic has disproportionately affected women at different levels especially in Ghana, and describes why governments need to focus more strongly on the gendered impacts of COVID-19 in both their sanitary and economic response.

Entretien avec Pr Felwine Sarr, Professeur Titulaire des Universités et agrégé en économie à l’Université Gaston Berger de Saint-Louis au Sénégal, pour la série d’INET sur COVID-19 et l’Afrique

An interview with Professor Felwine Sarr, Professor of Economics at the Université Gaston Berger of Saint-Louis in Senegal, for INET’s series on COVID-19 and Africa

An interview with Dr Fatima Denton, Director of the United Nations University – Institute for Natural Resources in Africa, for INET’s series on COVID-19 and Africa

An interview with Pr Benno Ndulu, the former Governor of the Bank of Tanzania, for INET’s series on COVID-19 and Africa

An introduction to a series of interviews conducted by Dr. Dr. Folashadé Soulé and Dr. Camilla Toulmin in support of INET’s Commission on Global Economic Transformation (CGET)

A report from the Commission on Global Economic Transformation’s meeting in West Africa

An event for INET’s Commission on Global Economic Transformation

An update from the meeting of the Commission on Global Economic Transformation (CGET) in Cape Town

A meeting hosted by INET’s Commission on Global Economic Transformation (CGET) and Oxfam Strategic Dialogue at the WEF Africa meeting

Frequent civil conflicts in African countries may erode national identity, thus highlighting a reason why civil conflict is costly for growth and development

Frequent civil conflicts in African countries may erode national identity, thus highlighting a reason why civil conflict is costly for growth and development

The Nobel laureate economist discusses how an activist government is needed to tackle problems like climate change

The YSI Economics of Innovation, Economic Development and Africa Working Groups, in partnership with Global Network for Economics of Learning, Innovation and Competence Building Systems (GLOBELICS), Globelics Alumni, are organizing the 1st GLOBELICS Pre-Conference for Young Scholars entitled ‘Financing of Innovation and Infrastructure for Development’.

The YSI Africa Working Group is convening in Bologna, Italy in conjunction with the 13th Annual Meeting of the African Economic History Network. Our meeting in Bologna follows what promises to be a successful convention in August 2018 at the YSI Africa Convening in Harare, Zimbabwe. The YSI Africa Working Group is committed to continuing important conversations about how economic history can contribute to the study of development of Africa. We are particularly interested in thinking about the types of new approaches to the study of economics and economic history.

Young Scholars based in Africa are invited to convene in Harare, Zimbabwe. The event serves to strengthen the African network of new economic thinkers pursuing a new economic paradigm. Attendees will be able to attend the annual conference of the Zimbabwe Historical Association in the same trip.

The African Development Bank has laid out a plan for economic prosperity in the continent. But to get there, African countries must first confront jobless growth and underfunded infrastructure projects.

The Young Scholars Initiative will be hosting a group of young scholars to attend the meetings and discussions in and around UNCTAD International Debt Management Conference of 2017.

The Young Scholars Initiative and the University of the Free State, SA, invite young scholars to attend the first YSI Africa conference. 

Workshop of the YSI Africa Working Group 

Mass protests challenging the government to focus on job-creation rather than on market liberalization and trade deals may carry a cautionary message to Western policy makers, too.

A combination of leeway within the government and constitutional immunity during incumbency enables office holders to abuse their budget at will, which in turn creates a crisis of growth in Africa, relative to other parts of the world.

Pushing this strand of research brings a certain feeling of trepidation. It comes from recognizing that by openly elaborating on how to catch or deter a criminal, you thereby confer an undue advantage on the criminal through forewarning.

The Arab Spring has been a fundamental event in the Arab world and yet among Middle East scholars, there is great intellectual and analytical debate about the degree of political change or continuity that the Arab Spring had produced. As reverberations of the global economic crisis have continued and the international rules of the game have fundamentally remained unchanged, the demand on post-Arab Spring governments to change policy course is high.

While successive waves of democratization over the last half century changed the political landscape in various regions of the world, the authoritarian regimes have maintained their hold on power in the Arab region.

The purpose of this Chartbook is to present a summary of evidence about changes in economic inequality – primarily income, earnings, and wealth – for 25 countries covering a 100 year period from 1911 to 2010.