Ideas to Action:
Independent research for global prosperity
Each year around this time, the Centre for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University hosts its annual conference. In this post, we provide a bite-sized summary of every conference paper that we could find.
The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a significant toll on African economies. Despite the significant support for COVID-19 response provided by their bilateral and multilateral partners, African countries continue to face significant financing needs to protect lives and livelihood and bolster prospects for a stronger and more resilient economic recovery. In this light, the time for the international community to go big on supporting Africa’s pandemic crisis recovery is now.
Debates on Sub-Saharan Africa’s development path and prospects often focus on two questions. Looking back, why have countries not experienced the structural transformation towards labor-intensive manufactures that has played such an important a role in the rapid development of Asian countries? And, looking forward, can poor countries still jump onto the escalator of manufactured exports development?
As the virus spread and shut down life as we know it, global response became increasingly tainted by provincialism. From seizing masks and medical supplies en route to other countries to preventing vaccine exports, the world’s richest countries turned inward and neglected the global response effort. It is not too late to correct what has been an egregious failure in leadership.
A general SDR allocation has the potential to provide rapidly additional liquidity to African economies, thereby enhancing prospects for crisis mitigation and recovery.
On January 25, the African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET) and CGD convened a panel of seven experts, including from government, the private sector, and financing partners, to discuss the potential for increasing DRM in the aftermath of the COVID-19 health and economic crises.
In December, PASEC released its new results on the quality of schooling in 14 francophone African countries. PASEC data offer a unique perspective on what the 50 million primary school students of these countries are learning. Here are five takeaways.
Going beyond the effects of COVID, we take a look at five education stories in 2020, from lead poisoning to selective schools, that may turn out to shape policy in the years to come.
The current state of migration cooperation between Africa and Europe is far from this ideal. True partnerships should focus on promoting economic opportunity in countries of origin and expanding legal pathways, both from Africa to Europe and within the continent. Currently, African governments are left responding to Europe’s short-term thinking without collaboration towards long-term mutual gain—a scenario that undermines the potential for joint initiatives that can benefit both Africa and the EU.
With increased focus on the shortfall inlearning outcomes around the world (the “learning crisis”!), one might assume that just about every child is in school, or at least that every young child is in primary school. But sadly, that’s not the case: in low-income countries, just two-thirds of children complete their primary education!
Commentary Menu