Publications /
Annual Report
Book / Report

Back
Africa and the Global Commodity Markets
Authors
Under the Supervision of
Philippe Chalmin
July 4, 2016

Guinea’s bauxite, Moroccan phosphates, Nigerian Bonny Light, Zambian copper, Côte d'Ivoire’s cocoa, Ethiopian coffee or Madagascar’s vanilla: all are examples demonstrating that raw materials have a dimension that is as global as it is local. Global by the markets on which they are traded, local by their quality, a key element of their price, and their macroeconomic impact, particularly for Africa. In line with the 2016 CyclOpe report, which celebrates three decades of existence this year, the first CyclOpe Africa report wanted to reflect this double feature, which is so essential for anyone interested in understanding how these exciting markets, whatever they are, function. The reader will find an exhaustive analysis of the situation on the raw materials markets that ‘count’ for the African continent in 2015, and the first months of 2016. They will also find more comprehensive chapters on macroeconomic conditions prevailing today in Sub-Saharan Africa, but also on public policy in Africa, and particularly on the issue of infrastructure, which in Africa is known to be, perhaps more than on other continents, one of the catalysts for strong and inclusive economic growth.

The CyclOpe Africa report is written by fifty international experts under the supervision of Philippe Chalmin, Professor at the University Paris Dauphine, and Yves Jégourel, lecturer at Bordeaux University and Senior Fellow at the OCP Policy Center. The CyclOpe Africa report is part of a collaboration between CyclOpe and the OCP Policy Center.

RELATED CONTENT

  • Authors
    May 22, 2019
    The trade tensions between the United States and China will cause only minor immediate damage to their giant economies. However, tariffs have important and diverse effects on individual sectors and cause heightened uncertainty. The main adverse effects on Sub-Saharan Africa will therefore be through global investor confidence, economic growth and commodity prices, and these effects could be severe if the dispute escalates further and endangers the rules-based trading system. The tra ...
  • Authors
    May 21, 2019
    Throughout my last 15 years working in multilateral institutions, many times around the world I was asked to speak about the success of poverty reduction in Brazil during the new millennium. Last week, someone who was on such an occasion in October 2013 in Nairobi asked me what my numbers had become after these recent years of precarious macroeconomic performance and high unemployment in the country. I replied that they have changed ... in part! Indeed, the fact that, even without ...
  • Authors
    May 20, 2019
    The year 1912. The ocean liner “Titanic” was a technical wonder of the world. At least for the British. The unsinkable pride of the “White Star Fleet”, built in Northern Ireland, made to board 3511 passengers and crew. In the early hours of April 15th, 1912, the glory on the sea hit an iceberg, nature   displayed the fragility of progress and technology.  A tragedy. Realizing his  time had come, too soon but  nevertheless, Wallace Hartley, an onboard band leader, chose the  appropri ...
  • Authors
    Sabine Cessou
    May 17, 2019
    Sur quelles contraintes faut-il anticiper lorsqu’on évoque la croissance de l’Afrique? Comment guider les décideurs politiques dans les priorités à définir pour piloter l’économie et arriver à bon port dans le monde qui vient? Le séminaire organisé le 11 avril à Paris par le PCNS et le Centre de développement de l’OCDE a apporté des éléments de réponse. La discussion s’est ouverte en prenant appui sur le rapport de référence publié en 2018 par l’Union africaine et l’OCDE sur les “D ...
  • Authors
    Joseph Hammond
    May 16, 2019
    The author is an alumnus of the 2018 Atlantic Dialogues Emerging Leaders program Last year Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took a big step toward stabilizing the Horn of Africa when he agreed to sign a long-disputed peace agreement with Eritrea - one that previous Ethiopian governments had refused to sign beca of the border demarcation within the agreement would seem to leave Ethiopia to blame for sparking the conflict in 1998 that eventually caused as many as a quarter of a mi ...
  • Authors
    Akman, S.
    Armstrong, S.
    Braga, C.
    Gonzalez, A.
    Kimura, F.
    Nagakawa, J.
    Rashish, P.
    Tamura, A.
    May 15, 2019
    This policy brief (PB), prepared for the G-20 Working Group on Trade, aims to provide decision-makers with a succinct review of the state of the trading system, to point to likely scenarios, and to serve as a background to or reference for the other six PBs prepared by the T20 Task Force on Trade, Investment and Globalization. The brief argues that the world trading system has been remarkably successful in many respects but that the present strain reflects causes which are deep-seat ...