South Asia’s pace of progress towards the SDGs to date has been less than adequate. The COVID-19 outbreak, which has escalated into a global humanitarian crisis responsible for erasing developmental achievements attained over many years, places more hurdles along the subregion’s sustainable development pathways.

Assuming the COVID-19 pandemic ends or that successful vaccination programs are implemented, Southern Africa is projected to grow 3.2 percent in 2021 and 2.4 percent in 2022. But this recovery will be inadequate given the region’s estimated 6.3 percent contraction in 2020.

This report focuses on how countries that are dealing with climate change planning can ensure that these plans are integrated into their overall development planning to meet the needs of their populations—in other words, how they can go “Beyond Net Zero” to achieve balanced and complementary plans that first and foremost meet their development n

The informal economy in Africa is large and diverse, and it is the main source of employment in the region. It is projected to grow and create more jobs. The informal economy is well established in the region, but it also faces a host of development challenges.

Real gross domestic product growth in North Africa was largely negative in 2020, at -1.1% with a -5.1 percentage point drop over 2019, the African Development Bank’s 2021 edition of the North Africa Economic Outlook reports.

The Global Urban Competitiveness Report (GUCR) is a cooperative research conducted by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) and UN-Habitat focusing on sustainable urban competitiveness, urban land and urban finance. Led the project is participated by experts from CASS, UN-Habitat and well-known scholars in relevant fields.

In an increasingly interconnected world, one country’s ability to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is affected by positive or negative spillovers from other countries. Yet, little research has considered these spillovers in monitoring SDG progress.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the prospect of increasingly frequent and more intense natural and man-made disasters raise important questions about the resilience of the global economy to such shocks.

This report complements the African Development Bank’s African Economic Outlook 2021, providing more detail on West Africa’s economic situation and growth prospects in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also analyzes public debt in West African countries and explores financing options.

This report reviews the economic performance of the 13 countries under the African Development Bank’s East Africa Regional Development and Business Delivery Office: Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.