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The document examines the digital divide and the resulting low participation of African nations in the WTO's plurilateral e-commerce negotiations. It highlights the tension between the preferred multilateral approach of the African Group and the pragmatic necessity of joining the JSI to avoid being marginalized by rules set by developed nations. The author recommends that African states align e-commerce policies with industrialization goals and leverage the African Union to negotiate as a unified bloc.

The Lagos Declaration on Community Justice outlines a series of pledges by West African organisations to strengthen legal empowerment for the poor. Key commitments include training paralegals to address climate change and land rights, increasing the participation of women in legal work, and advocating for the formal recognition of community paralegals across the region. The participating organisations, forming the West Africa Legal Empowerment Network, aim to co-create participatory action research to tackle environmental and land justice challenges in both rural and urban settings.

The document assesses Tanzania's macroeconomic response to the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting the use of accommodative monetary and fiscal policies to avoid recession. It recommends strengthening healthcare, implementing macroprudential policies, and prioritizing climate-resilient economic development and social protection for vulnerable groups.

The document examines the COVID-19 macroeconomic responses of South Africa, Nigeria, Senegal, Benin, Tanzania, and Uganda. It finds that wealthier, more open economies like South Africa and Senegal were more vulnerable to trade shocks but had greater capacity for fiscal and financial stimulus. In contrast, Tanzania and Benin experienced marginal growth deceleration due to minimal government reactions. The report highlights a looming 'debt repayment wall' peaking in 2024 and argues for a transition toward green energy, diversified revenue bases, and the redirection of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) from high-income nations to support African development and climate adaptation.

The report argues that climate mitigation and socioeconomic development can be achieved simultaneously through synergistic solutions. It introduces the Drawdown Lift Human Well-Being Index (HWI), based on the Doughnut Economics model, to assess 12 dimensions of human well-being. The analysis focuses on five groups of solutions: Improving Agriculture and Agroforestry, Protecting and Restoring Ecosystems, Adopting Clean Cooking, Providing Clean Electricity, and Fostering Equality. The report provides evidence that these solutions can reduce greenhouse gas emissions while directly improving food security, health, income, and gender equality in low- and middle-income countries.

The report examines the erosion of socio-economic resilience in the Lake Chad Basin due to the Boko Haram conflict. It details the disruption of fishing, agriculture, and livestock trade, the negative impact of state-imposed trade bans and extortion, and the specific vulnerabilities of women. It argues that the lack of state development presence pushes communities toward 'perverse social contracts' with violent extremist groups for survival.

The report examines community-driven decentralised renewable energy (DRE) projects in Germany and Sub-Saharan Africa, arguing that local participation is essential for a successful clean energy transition. It identifies six key benefits of this approach, including energy security, local green job creation, and productive uses of renewable energy (PURE). The document details 12 case studies—three in Germany and nine in Africa—highlighting a variety of technologies such as solar PV mini-grids, micro-hydropower, and solar-powered desalination. It categorises barriers into social, financial, and technical pillars and provides targeted recommendations for public and private stakeholders to scale these models, emphasizing the need for gender-inclusive approaches and innovative financing.

The government of Benin and the BCEAO responded to COVID-19 with expansionary monetary and fiscal policies, including cash transfers, subsidies, and increased liquidity for banks and the agricultural sector. While these measures stimulated aggregate demand and supported food security, the expansion of the money supply led to higher consumer price inflation, which threatened real household incomes. The brief recommends transitioning to contractionary monetary policy during periods of economic growth to curb inflation and better targeting future fiscal spending toward vulnerable households and hard-hit sectors like hospitality and industry to maximize the fiscal multiplier effect.

Nigeria faces severe developmental challenges including endemic corruption, insecurity, and an overdependence on oil exports. Projections indicate that without intervention, Nigeria will have the highest number of poor people globally by 2050. The report proposes a 'Super Nigeria' scenario combining improvements in governance, human capital, infrastructure, agriculture, and economic diversification to potentially make Nigeria the fifth largest economy globally by 2050.

The author examines why most African countries have failed to ratify the 2018 Free Movement of Persons protocol despite its potential to boost trade, investment, and living standards. While small or poorer nations like Benin and Seychelles have adopted liberal visa policies, larger and wealthier states remain hesitant due to fears of economic competition and xenophobic political mobilization. To break this logjam, the author suggests clarifying the implementation roadmap, linking free movement to free trade processes, improving civil registration and identity systems, and encouraging progress through smaller regional or ad hoc groupings.

The report identifies a lack of coherence between the coding systems used for procurement (such as UNSPSC and CPV) and those used for reporting (such as OECD DAC CRS and IATI). This fragmentation creates barriers for innovators attempting to enter the humanitarian and development markets, as it is difficult to track what products are being procured and how they are reported. The authors recommend harmonizing reporting formats, clarifying stakeholder responsibilities, and developing user-friendly platforms to match solution providers with donor needs.

West Africa has experienced warming of 1–3°C since the mid-1970s, leading to increased heatwaves, variable rainfall, and widespread losses in GDP and food productivity. Future projections indicate severe risks, including a potential 30% decline in marine fisheries catch and significant population exposure to sea level rise, particularly in coastal cities like Lagos and Abidjan. Adaptation requires transformative, ecosystem-based approaches and a significant increase in climate finance, as current funding is insufficient and heavily skewed toward non-African institutions.

The report presents survey data from 108,946 Facebook users worldwide, revealing high global levels of worry and belief that climate change is happening, though perceptions of its causes and the responsibility for action vary significantly by region. While there is widespread support for renewable energy and the belief that climate action will not harm economic growth, willingness to engage in organized climate activism remains low in most regions, with a notable exception in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The NAP Global Network's 2021-2022 progress report highlights its efforts to accelerate climate adaptation in the Global South through three main pillars: peer learning, technical assistance, and knowledge generation. Key achievements include the expansion of in-country support programs from two to nine, the launch of the NAP Trends platform, and the delivery of gender-responsive and monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) focused summits. The Network reports steady progress toward its 2025 strategy targets, including support for least developed countries (LDCs) and small island developing states (SIDS), while emphasizing the critical transition from adaptation planning to implementation.

This report section analyzes the middle-income population at risk due to a lack of access to sustainable cooling in 2022, focusing on high-impact countries. It details a global decline in this demographic, driven largely by the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and provides regional and country-specific breakdowns of population shifts.

The document examines the 'militarisation of politics' in Africa, using the conflict in Ethiopia between the federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) as a primary example. It defines militarisation as the tendency to settle political disputes militarily and notes that this trend is often a legacy of colonial rule. The author highlights a history of military coups and civil wars across the continent, noting that by 2017, Africa had experienced 200 successful and failed coups. While the African Union (AU) has frameworks like the Lomé Declaration and the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance to prevent unconstitutional changes of government, the document argues that inconsistent implementation—such as the AU's failure to suspend Chad after the seizure of power by the Transnational Military Council—undermines these efforts. Additionally, the text notes a 17% increase in African military spending over the last decade, totaling $41.2 billion in 2019. In the Horn of Africa, the conflict involving Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Sudan risks regional destabilisation and the undoing of previous peace agreements.

The COVID-19 pandemic increased food insecurity across Africa, with upper-middle income countries like South Africa experiencing higher vulnerability due to their reliance on formal employment and global supply chains. While agricultural production grew in 2020, protectionist measures such as export bans in Malawi hindered the redistribution of food. The document highlights the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) as a critical mechanism to reduce dependence on global imports, lower trade barriers, and improve food resilience through increased intra-continental trade and the legalisation of informal cross-border trade.

The Ugandan government responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by implementing expansionary fiscal and monetary policies to mitigate the economic contraction caused by aggressive containment measures. While these policies helped maintain financial sector stability and provided temporary liquidity to businesses, the economy experienced a significant slowdown, with real GDP growth dropping from 6.8% in FY 2018/19 to 2.9% in FY 2019/20. The industrial and services sectors were hardest hit, contributing to a projected 34.5% increase in the number of people living below the poverty line. Fiscal strain led to a rise in public debt from $12.55 billion to $15.27 billion in FY 2019/20, while the external sector saw a contraction in foreign direct investment and tourism receipts.

The report argues that subsidiarity in the African Union (AU) is currently used as a political tool rather than a clear legal principle, leading to competition and inconsistency between the AU and regional mechanisms (RMs). It highlights that the lack of operational definitions and contradictory legal frameworks—such as the 2007 MoU and the PSC Protocol—creates confusion in the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA). The authors suggest shifting the focus from a division of competences to a model of complementarity, where regions act as 'first responders' while the AU remains the 'primary actor'. Key recommendations include establishing a comprehensive legal, policy, and financial framework, utilizing the AU Peace Fund for alignment, and creating operational liaison offices between the AU Commission and RMs.

The document examines the failure of grant-based 'design, procure, install' models for electrifying public institutions, which often lead to premature system failure due to neglected operation and maintenance (O&M). It proposes a service-based model where private providers install and maintain systems over 10-15 years, with governments paying for performance verified by third parties. The brief identifies key barriers—including public sector affordability, private sector capital risks, and grid arrival—and presents case studies from Benin, Kenya, Niger, and Nigeria to demonstrate the model's potential.