The low absolute poverty rate of North-African countries is often used to demonstrate the pertinence of their economic model. However, even if the poverty rate is accepted as a good metric for the social achievements of a government, its pattern at the country level may mask important variations in...

L’expérience montre que les marchés obligataires en monnaie locale aident à la stabilité financière en réduisant les risques de change et en allongeant les échéances des financements. Ils apportent aussi de l’efficience en générant des taux d’intérêt déterminés par le marché, et qui reflètent les...

Africa escaped the recent global financial crisis relatively unscathed. While the region could not avoid the spillover effects of the ensuing global economic downturn, its banking sector proved generally resilient. This was mainly due to the structural reforms implemented over the past decade,...

Providing safe drinking water and basic sanitation to citizens is one of the major challenges facing the African Governments. The issues of access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation is well articulated and prioritized in the various national, continental, and international policy...

The FAO publishes a global Food Price Index (FPI) which measures monthly price changes for a basket of food commodities comprising meat, dairy, cereals, oils, fats, and sugar. The index fell to an 11-month low in October 2011, down to 216 points. This represents a 4 percent or nine-point decline...

The development impact of agricultural productivity growth for the African region is hard to over-emphasize. It has a direct effect on poverty reduction, given that 50 percent of the African population is directly engaged in agriculture. The indirect effects are also substantial. Research has shown...

Over the last one year, a series of events – ranging from the Arab Spring to the European debt crisis and growing food insecurity, particularly in the Horn of Africa – have focused attention on the fragility of the global economic system. An awareness of risk, and risk management, is increasingly...

This brief describes trends in population aging in Africa relative to those in economically advanced countries. It highlights the key drivers of the phenomenon, both globally and in the African context more specifically.