Opening Remarks - Session 2: A High-level Conversation

L’agriculture africaine a connu dernièrement une croissance relativement élevée, quoique peu résiliente et tirée principalement par l’extensification. Malgré sa diversité, les niveaux de production restent insuffisants pour autonomiser le continent surtout pour ce qui est des produits alimentaires de base. En misant sur l’intégration, des marges de progrès se présentent aux pays africains pour améliorer l’écosystème de l’agriculture africaine et ses performances. Il s’agit de puiser ...

The spatial mismatch hypothesis states that a lack of connection to job opportunities may affect an individual’s prospects in the labour market, especially for low-skilled workers. This phenomenon is especially observed in large urban areas, in which low-skilled minorities tend to live far away from jobs and face geographical barriers to finding and keeping jobs. This paper aims to investigate whether this negative relationship between spatial mismatch and labour market outcomes is ...

Nigerian and « design thinking process » expert, Ade Mabogunje has worked in Africa, India and Europe, before settling in California, where he is a Director at Stanford University. What does it take exactly for innovation to happen ? Such is the line of his thinking and teaching. He’s been invited twice to the 2016 and 2017 Atlantic Dialogues to share his knowledge with two cohorts of 50 Emerging Leaders from Africa, Europe and the Americas, selected by the OCP Policy Center. This P ...

This paper investigates the relationship between economic growth and job creation in developing economies with a focus on low and lower middle-income countries along two dimensions: growth patterns and short-run correlations. Analysis on growth patterns shows that regime changes are quite common in both economic growth and employment growth, yet they are not synchronized with each other. Okun’s Law—the short-run relationship between output and labor market—holds in half of the count ...

I am in Marrakech attending the Atlantic Dialogue, a very interesting event organized by the OCP Policy Center. One of the questions put to debate was: "How can Sub-Saharan Africa benefit from its economic potential to grow, thrive and eliminate poverty?" In fact, this is one of the questions most frequently raised by the economic development community. And one of the most common responses is that, alongside natural resources, the young population is the most powerful engine of gro ...

La conférence Atlantic Dialogues 2017 s'est poursuivie le 14 décembre à Marrakech en passant progressivement de l'économie à la géopolitique. Des personnalités du Nord et du Sud se sont répondues, dans un débat franc et ouvert.  Hubert Védrine, ancien ministre français des Affaires étrangères, a livré son analyse de la diplomatie mondiale en ces termes : « Tous les pays défendent leurs intérêts et développent des idées, mais une dizaine seulement ont une vraie politique étrangère. L ...

As I arrived in Casablanca, I swerved between the crowds and baggage carousels to find someone I had never met before. That day in Casablanca was my first as a U.S. Fulbright Research Scholar seeking to learn more about Morocco’s energy sector. Only three months into my time in Morocco, I have had the chance to befriend young Moroccans and share conversations about Morocco’s burgeoning economy and its plans to build the world’s largest solar power plant. These Moroccan youth also s ...

The In-focus session about Jobless Growth during the Atlantic Dialogues on December 14th led to a passionate debate on the future impact of jobless growth on Africa as well as the world economy. « Jobless growth » was coined by the American economist Nick Perna (Yale) in the early 1990s. The causes of this phenomenon are highly discussed. For instance, automation is seen as the main source of jobless growth by some economists while others argue that it falls into a « Luddite Fallac ...