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The policy brief examines the severe fiscal constraints facing African countries during COVID-19 recovery, noting that while advanced economies mobilised about 6% of GDP, African countries mobilised barely 1%. It highlights the inadequacy of current debt relief mechanisms like the DSSI and the Common Framework, and the high cost of borrowing from international capital markets due to unfair credit ratings. The author proposes five policy priorities: establishing national donor coordination frameworks, reallocating public investment to de-risk private projects, extending the DSSI for two years with partial debt cancellation, creating a transparent multilateral framework for debt resolution involving commercial creditors, and exploring the establishment of independent, publicly owned credit rating agencies.

The document details an external review of WRI's 2018-2022 Strategic Plan, evaluating its seven global challenges and core functions. It employs a mixed-methods approach, including 'Outcome Harvesting' and a 'Traffic Light System' to measure progress. Preliminary findings indicate that the Forests program is the strongest performer (95.9% achievement), while the Governance Center is partially on track (44% achievement). The review also assesses WRI's growth, the impact of COVID-19, and the integration of gender and social equity across its global operations, including specific assessments of its offices in Africa, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and the United States.

The External Review finds that WRI is 'Mostly on Track' with its 2018-2022 Strategic Plan, achieving 71.3% of its targets by October 2021. While WRI remains a critical global player in environment and development, the review identifies significant risks related to rapid organizational growth, a potential tilt from research toward advocacy, and under-resourced core functions. The report highlights a need for a 'step-change' in monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) and a more systematic integration of poverty, gender, and social equity (PGSE) across its programs. WRI's Africa office is also 'mostly on track,' though it faces challenges in coordinating global programming with regional priorities.

The document outlines key lessons for SADC member states to improve their NDCs, emphasizing the need for inclusive stakeholder engagement, alignment with long-term development goals, and the use of quantifiable targets and evidence-based analysis. It highlights examples from South Africa, Rwanda, and Costa Rica to demonstrate how detailed implementation roadmaps and participatory scenario planning can enhance climate commitments.

The report argues that Ethiopia's political transition since 2018 has been undermined by escalating inter-ethnic and communal violence. This instability is driven by a combination of militant ethno-nationalism, deep ideological divides between pan-Ethiopianism and ethnonationalism, and rivalries among political elites who mobilise the masses. The document highlights the role of state fragility, where institutional indifference, incompetence, and the complicity of some officials have allowed conflicts to proliferate. Specific regional tensions are detailed, including disputes over autonomy in the SNNP region and racial and economic grievances in Benishangul Gumuz. The report concludes that stability requires a comprehensive political settlement, an inclusive national dialogue, and the professionalisation of security forces to dismantle illicit arms networks.

The document analyzes the resurgent roles of China and Russia in Africa since 2000. China's influence is primarily economic, driven by the Belt and Road Initiative and long-term infrastructure investments, while Russia's approach is more opportunistic, focusing on mining, arms exports, and the deployment of private military contractors in fragile states. While the two powers coordinate on challenging Western norms and supporting non-interference in the UN Security Council, they maintain a 'competitive partnership' characterized by limited strategic coordination in security and economics, and occasional competition for commercial contracts in countries like Zimbabwe.

A keynote speech delivered by Mavis Owusu-Gyamfi of the African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET) at the Youth Connekt Africa Summit, advocating for increased regional labor mobility to address youth unemployment and skills gaps in Africa.

The report examines the role of indigenous knowledge in bridging climate data gaps in Africa, highlighting how traditional observation methods and community-based forecasting can enhance the accuracy of early warning systems when integrated with scientific meteorology. It identifies the decline of this knowledge due to modernization and the preference for top-down scientific models, while providing examples of successful 'co-production' of climate information in countries like Kenya.

The report finds that East Africa remains fragile due to violent extremism, insurgency, and resource-based conflicts, despite governance progress in some states. It highlights the prevalence of unregistered firearms, particularly in Somalia, and the role of anocracies in driving political instability. The document maps the overlapping mandates of regional organisations like the EAC and IGAD and recommends stronger inter-REC coordination and standardised regional monitoring to address information gaps.

The report analyzes mixed migration in East Africa and the Horn, identifying a complex interplay of political instability, state fragility, poverty, and climate change as primary drivers. It highlights the challenges of protracted refugee situations, particularly the restrictive nature of encampment policies, and contrasts the progressive refugee framework in Uganda with more restrictive regimes in neighboring states. The document argues for a shift from dependency to self-reliance, the harmonization of regional and international laws, and the integration of climate adaptation into migration policies to achieve durable solutions.

The report examines the challenges in operationalizing the AU Peace Fund, specifically disagreements over contribution scales among member states. It warns against the increasing use of private military and security companies (PMSCs) like the Wagner Group in Africa, citing human rights risks. Additionally, it advocates for a revamp of the AU's PCRD approach to better address post-authoritarian transitions and the role of women in peacebuilding, using The Gambia as a model for small, expert-led deployments.

The document examines China's role as a primary funder and contractor of ICT networks in the Global South, specifically through the Digital Silk Road (DSR) initiative. It compares the implementation of a submarine fibre optic cable in Cambodia and the National ICT Broadband Backbone in Tanzania. The analysis finds that while these projects generally had limited environmental impacts and provided essential connectivity, they suffered from a lack of transparency and mixed results in socioeconomic mitigation, such as limited high-level technology transfer and underutilisation of infrastructure.

The report outlines systemic barriers to gridless services, emphasizing that failures often stem from a lack of understanding of user needs, regulatory gaps, and financial instability rather than technical performance.

The document examines the geopolitical competition between the US and China in Africa, suggesting that African nations can increase their agency by playing rival powers against each other to obtain better investment, infrastructure funding, and trade agreements. It highlights examples from Guinea and Ethiopia where this strategy yielded better contract terms and infrastructure packages. The author proposes five measures for African governments: avoiding opportunistic short-term offers, adopting integrated strategic plans (citing Senegal's Plan Emergent Senegal), learning from other regions like Latin America and Southeast Asia, enhancing bureaucratic capacity and local expertise on foreign partners, and promoting trilateral or quadrilateral cooperation between traditional and new partners.

The report highlights a critical failure by major livestock-producing nations and corporations to address methane emissions, despite the gas's high potency and short atmospheric lifespan. It finds that most assessed countries lack absolute methane reduction targets and that the largest meat and dairy companies fail to report methane emissions separately or implement concrete abatement plans. The document advocates for a systemic transition toward plant-rich diets and the implementation of both technical and behavioral mitigation measures to meet Paris Agreement goals.

The document establishes a direct link between gender-based development pillars—specifically secondary education for girls and access to modern contraception—and the capacity of vulnerable populations to adapt to climate change. It highlights that women in low- and middle-income countries face disproportionate climate impacts, which often trigger a cycle of early marriage and school dropout. The brief provides evidence that education reduces disaster vulnerability and that family planning improves maternal and child health, thereby increasing household resilience. It concludes that these strategies are largely absent from National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and calls for their integration into climate finance and policy frameworks.

The document identifies girls' education and family planning as critical, yet overlooked, long-term strategies for climate adaptation. It details how these interventions reduce vulnerability to natural disasters, improve agricultural productivity, and enhance overall community resilience. The authors call for these components to be formally included in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), supported by dedicated climate finance.

The report examines how gender norms and power dynamics influence vulnerability and adaptive capacity in the ocean economy of SIDS and coastal LDCs. It highlights the undervalued roles of women in small-scale fisheries and tourism and analyzes how climate change, market shifts, and COVID-19 disproportionately affect women due to socio-economic structures. The document advocates for the systematic collection of sex-disaggregated data, the implementation of gender-transformative policies, and the alignment of international finance, such as Official Development Assistance (ODA) and climate risk insurance, with gender equality goals to enhance overall community resilience.

The report finds that nature-based infrastructure (NBI) is significantly more cost-effective than traditional grey infrastructure, potentially saving USD 248 billion annually if it replaced 11.4% of global infrastructure needs. NBI also generates 28% more value than grey alternatives, contributing an additional USD 489 billion in annual value through ecosystem services. The study highlights that traditional valuations often overlook these benefits, leading to a default reliance on grey infrastructure and missed opportunities to address climate and biodiversity crises.

The document investigates whether Russia exerts significant influence over African states in the UN Security Council (UNSC) by analyzing voting patterns between 2014 and 2020. It argues that Russia's influence over the A3 is often exaggerated, as statistical evidence shows that African member states remain more aligned with the P3 (US, UK, and France) and are largely independent of Russian vetoes and abstentions. While the A3 have increasingly sought to present unified positions on African peace and security issues, their voting behavior on non-African files shows a declining coincidence with Russian positions over time.