Africa : how to enhance regional integration and economic growth ?

*The recommendations put forth below have been published, both print and online, in the Financial Times.  The leaders of the G20 will meet on 30 November and 1 December in Buenos Aires for their annual summit. They need to acknowledge that the last two years have been characterized by strong headwinds for the world economy. This time, however, it is not a mixture of poor macroeconomic policies and bad business decisions – as in 2008 when they met in Washington for their first summi ...

Nowadays, links between development and security are widely recognized by many, just as they were during the development of the Marshall Plan. As mentioned in the United Nations "A More Secure World" report, threats to one are intrinsically a threat to all. Thus, 17 UN-agreed goals were agreed upon to help end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all by 2030, including goal 16 for "peaceful and inclusive societies". Last month, the UN’s inaugural Africa Dialogue S ...

Depuis plus de 70 ans, le franc CFA est la monnaie commune à quatorze pays du continent africain. Procéder à une comparaison entre les taux d’inflation et de croissance des pays membres de l’Union économique monétaire de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (UEMOA) et de la Communauté économique et monétaire de l’Afrique centrale (CEMAC), permet d’analyser les taux d’inflation et de croissance d’une vaste région regroupant deux communautés : l’une, ayant choisi le franc CFA comme monnaie, composée ...

There are various definitions of Energy Security (ES) and numerous ways of understanding the concept. For this blog’s purpose, we will choose the familiar understanding of the latter as put forward by the George W. Bush Administration, i.e. it represents a situation where four characteristics are met, an energy supply that is: (1) Reliable (2) affordable (3) environmentally sound and (4) accessible.  Thus, ES represents the situation where there’s availability of energy at all time ...

The Beijing Declaration “Toward and Even Stronger China-Africa Community with a Shared Future” - and the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Beijing Action Plan (2019-2021), resulting from the last FOCAC held on September the 3rd and 4th 2018, in Beijing, showed the China-Africa cooperation will increase deeper in the near future, clearly demonstrating a new era for both China and Africa. FOCAC currently comprises China and 53 African countries.  China, slowly but surely, is ...

The Brazilian economy pays a price in terms of productivity foregone because of its lack of trade openness. A trade opening process would bring an adjustment impact that could nonetheless be mitigated with public policies that facilitate labor mobility and job migration. Benefits from trade opening would also hinge on policy improvements in complementary areas, such as infrastructure investments, business environment and others. The Brazilian economy would benefit from opening trad ...

Salutations Thank you for the invitation to address the 2018 Africa Think Tank Summit  in this memorable city of Rabat. I thank in particular, the OCP Policy Center and the Think Tank and Civil Societies Program of the University of Pennsylvania for hosting the Summit with the theme “Deepening Expertise and Enhancing Sustainability: Insight into Contemporary Challenges Facing African Think Tanks”. Rabat, Morocco has been the sprouting ground of numerous agenda-setting instruments ...

What are the best ways forward to enhance the capacity, increase the impact, and ensure the long term viability of think tanks in Africa? These questions have been debated during the 2nd edition of African Think Tank Summit (ATTS) held in Rabat from May 9th to May 11th.  The African think tanks have positively evolved over the years in order to respond to the specific needs of their different countries. They operate as platforms to share knowledge and train young leaders, with some ...

These days, the word "crisis" is gaining a new urgency around the globe… Crisis of humanity, of water, hunger, poverty, climate. Crisis of war, destruction, terrorism. And a crisis of thought, intellectual exchange, theories transfered into reality. And a crisis of think tanks, eventually, although their work matters, since it sends signals, offers proposals and applicable solutions.  In that context, Olusegun Obasanjo, former President of Nigeria and Board member of the Africa Pro ...

The recently signed African Continental Free Trade Agreement represents a countercurrent to protectionist tendencies across the Atlantic and the Pacific, and may well move the economic integration of the African continent forward. Translating the vision into action, however, will call upon signatories to undertake deeper domestic reforms and to confront specific challenges related to the agreement itself. This brief explains why the agreement is important for Africa and identifies p ...