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FSD Africa's 2022 Impact Report details the agency's efforts to deepen African capital markets and transition toward a green economy. Key achievements include mobilising £1.9 billion in long-term capital, supporting the issuance of pioneering gender bonds in Tanzania and Morocco, and expanding green finance initiatives. The report highlights the agency's 'green strategy' target to have 70% of its portfolio be green by 2025, alongside specific interventions in geothermal risk transfer, carbon markets, and COVID-19 emergency job protection in Ethiopia.

The Capital Markets Master Plan 2022 outlines a ten-year roadmap to transform Zambia's capital markets into an attractive international destination for long-term investment. The plan is structured around five thematic development areas: enhancing the government bond market, improving traditional security markets (equities and corporate bonds), developing innovative products (such as green bonds, ETFs, and REITs), building capacity across regulators and practitioners, and strengthening the regulatory environment. Key goals include increasing the Lusaka Securities Exchange (LuSE) market capitalization to 33% of GDP by 2031, launching the country's first green bond, and establishing a primary dealership system for government bonds. The strategy emphasizes the need for a transparent, efficient, and trusted market to mobilize private finance for infrastructure, agriculture, and energy projects.

The COP27 Resilience Hub served as a physical and virtual space to accelerate ambition and investment in climate resilience, representing over 1,500 non-state actors. The report identifies five cross-cutting messages, emphasizing that scaling adaptation is a prerequisite for containing Loss and Damage and that locally-led adaptation (LLA) requires radical collaboration. The document details thematic analysis across nine areas—including finance, food, water, and health—and highlights the role of Regional Resilience Hubs in amplifying under-represented voices from Africa, South Asia, Asia Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean.

Chilling Prospects 2022 identifies that 3.66 billion people face high or medium risk from cooling access challenges, with 1.2 billion rural and urban poor at high risk. The report highlights critical gaps in food cold chains, health services, and human safety, while forecasting that achieving SDG 7.1 and SDG 1.1 could reduce the high-risk population by 36% by 2030. It advocates for a transition to sustainable, energy-efficient cooling and the implementation of National Cooling Action Plans (NCAPs) to mitigate climate impacts and protect vulnerable populations.

The 2022 SEforALL Forum, held in Kigali, Rwanda, mobilized USD 347 million in new financial commitments to support clean energy transitions and energy access in developing countries. Key outcomes included the Kigali Communique, which outlines seven transformative actions for a just energy transition in Africa, and the launch of several new partnerships and initiatives targeting renewable energy, energy efficiency, and clean cooking. The event emphasized the integration of youth in energy leadership and provided a platform for ministerial roundtables and B2B investment matchmaking.

The report finds that while updated NDCs show increased ambition and better alignment with national planning, a massive gap remains between current commitments and the emissions reductions needed to limit warming to 1.5°C. Mitigation efforts have improved in scope and transparency, but many sectoral measures remain vague. Adaptation components are more prevalent in developing countries and show increased focus on equity and critical systems, though implementation details like timeframes and indicators are often missing. Climate finance requirements reported in NDCs total $4.282 trillion, highlighting a significant need for increased international support.

The AfCFTA has the potential to generate USD 3.4 trillion in GDP and lift over 100 million people out of poverty by 2040, with primary gains expected in manufacturing and services. However, significant disparities in factor markets—including labour skills, technology adoption, and financial capacity—exist across the continent, with Eastern and Southern Africa generally possessing higher capacities than Central and Western Africa. The document highlights risks associated with heavy reliance on non-African financing, such as the EU-funded Africa Trade Observatory, and urges member states to leverage domestic capital markets and sovereign wealth funds. It further emphasizes that political stability and the empowerment of regional bodies are essential to protect private sector investment in cross-border infrastructure, which the World Bank estimates requires USD 47.6 billion annually.

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 compares the Rwanda-Peru (RP) and Japan (JP) draft resolutions for UNEA 5.2, highlighting that while both seek a global legally binding instrument and an intergovernmental negotiating committee (INC), they differ significantly in scope and mandate. The RP resolution adopts a broad 'plastic pollution' scope across all environments using a full lifecycle approach (upstream production to downstream waste), whereas the JP resolution focuses specifically on 'marine plastic pollution' with a stronger emphasis on downstream interventions and a goal to reduce additional marine plastic pollution to zero by 2050. Additionally, the RP resolution proposes an 'open mandate' for the INC and a stronger institutional framework, including a financial mechanism and a scientific and socio-economic body, which are absent or more limited in the JP draft.

The report examines the synergy between the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and the African Union's Green Recovery Action Plan (GRAP) to foster green intra-continental trade and investment. While the AfCFTA is intended to transform Africa's production and trade landscape, the document notes that environmental and climate considerations have not been prominent in its development. The report specifically analyzes how the combined implementation of these frameworks can support recovery in Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, and South Africa.

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 statement criticizes the imposition of travel bans on Southern African countries, asserting that such measures are ineffective at stopping mutations and cause significant economic damage. It highlights the disparity in vaccination rates between Africa and advanced economies, calling for the decentralization of vaccine manufacturing, the implementation of a WTO intellectual property rights waiver, and a shift from unilateralism to collective global action to ensure equitable vaccine distribution.

The report examines how voluntary sustainability standards (VSSs) can support poverty reduction for smallholder farmers across three dimensions: access to resources, opportunities and choices, and power and voice. Through an analysis of 13 major VSSs and interviews in six countries, it finds that while VSSs can improve crop income, natural resource management, and skills development, their overall impact on poverty is inconclusive and context-specific. Significant barriers to smallholder access include high certification costs, limited financial resources, and asymmetrical power relations in supply chains. The report recommends that VSSs better integrate gender equality, support business diversification, and harmonize standards, while urging governments to provide better land tenure and financial support to enable smallholder compliance.

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.

The report analyzes the 2019 HRC voting records of 13 African member states, finding a significant lack of unity within the African Group. While South Africa, Rwanda, and Burkina Faso emerged as the strongest supporters of international human rights, Egypt, Eritrea, and Cameroon were the most opposed. The analysis highlights a recurring contradiction where many African states strongly support resolutions condemning Israel while opposing or abstaining from resolutions targeting other rights-abusing regimes. Overall, the report suggests a general unwillingness among African states to defend international human rights, with a noted decline in support since 2017.

The EPAFLEC project aims to restore 6,000 hectares of degraded smallholder forests in North-West Rwanda by organizing farmers into Private Forest Management Units (PFMUs) and linking them to professional wood value chains. The project seeks to reduce pressure on forests by shifting 35,000 households—20,000 in Kigali and 15,000 in rural areas—from traditional charcoal and three-stone fires to wood pellets and improved cookstoves (ICS). It integrates private sector investment from SEAL and BioMassters Ltd to create a sustainable supply of raw materials for high-value wood products and clean fuels. The initiative also includes developing alternative incomes like beekeeping and establishing community revolving funds funded by carbon credits to ensure long-term sustainability and resilience for local communities.

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 document analyzes the 'innovation chain'—emergence, deployment, and widespread adoption—to explain why capital fails to flow to climate projects in developing countries. It details a strategy by the Green Climate Fund (GCF) to overcome these barriers through policy support, piloting new technologies, de-risking investments via blended finance, and strengthening domestic financial institutions.

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.