Search Climate Insights Directory

This policy brief analyzes South Africa's assumption of the African Union (AU) chairship in 2020. It examines the opportunities for South Africa to drive continental priorities—such as regional integration and peace and security—while highlighting significant challenges, including the need to build consensus among member states and the negative impact of domestic xenophobic violence on its international legitimacy.

This report by the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) and UNDP examines the progress of African nations in implementing and monitoring Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16, which focuses on peace, justice, and strong institutions. Based on a survey of 126 stakeholders across 38 countries and a review of Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs), the document highlights Africa's leadership in governance statistics and the challenges of funding and data accessibility, while showcasing innovative national practices in data sovereignty and multi-stakeholder engagement.

The 2019 SEforALL Charrettes Report details a two-day design-thinking event held in June 2019 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The event brought together 115 diverse participants to generate 'disruptive solutions' to accelerate progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7), specifically focusing on universal access to electricity and clean cooking by 2030.

The 2019 report 'Dynamiser le financement de l’accès à l’énergie : UN TOUR D’HORIZON', produced by Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) and Climate Policy Initiative, analyzes public and private financing for electricity and clean cooking access across 20 developing countries from 2013 to 2017. It highlights a significant gap between current investments and the funding required to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7) by 2030, noting that while electricity funding reached a record in 2017, clean cooking finance collapsed and most funds do not reach the most vulnerable populations.

This WRI briefing argues that the distinction between climate adaptation and traditional development is a false dichotomy that hinders the effective use of scarce finance. The authors advocate for 'doing development differently' by integrating a strong climate rationale into all development planning, building national adaptive capacity, and empowering local stakeholders through devolved decision-making to ensure long-term resilience.

This fact sheet examines the role of insurance and alternative risk financing in building financial resilience against climate change. It details the growing 'protection gap'—the difference between total economic losses and insured losses—and explores emerging tools such as catastrophe bonds, microinsurance, and sovereign risk pools designed to manage the increasing frequency and intensity of climate-related disasters.

This report analyzes the conditions necessary for African states to achieve a demographic dividend, noting that most are currently several decades away due to high youth dependency and slow fertility declines. It argues that while global growth is slowing due to aging populations, Africa's expanding working-age population offers a comparative advantage if coupled with investments in contraception, female education, and basic infrastructure. The report warns that without these interventions and significant job creation, Africa will continue to diverge from global averages in income and health.

This report identifies and ranks the supply-side market barriers that increase the cost and limit the access of formal remittance services in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It analyzes the remittance value chain across the first, middle, and last miles, categorizing impediments into business case, regulatory, infrastructure, and consumer-related barriers. The study finds that SSA is the most expensive region globally for remittances, with an average cost of 9.4%, driven by a combination of rigid KYC requirements, a persistent preference for cash, and underdeveloped payment infrastructure.

The 'Innovations for Resilience Convening,' held in Munich in November 2017, brought together public and private sector partners to explore sustainable innovations that build resilience and enhance development outcomes. Co-hosted by the Global Resilience Partnership (GRP), World Food Programme (WFP), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and One Billion Coalition for Resilience (1BC), the event focused on the role of technology in addressing the increasing frequency of disasters and shocks, while identifying barriers to scaling these solutions globally.

This report by the Institute for Security Studies compares peacebuilding and inclusivity efforts in Liberia and South Sudan to provide practical recommendations for the United Nations and other international actors on sustaining peace.

This report documents a two-day workshop held in June 2018 by the Network of Southern Think Tanks (NeST) to identify African priorities and policy recommendations for the BAPA+40 conference. The discussions focused on redefining South-South Cooperation (SSC), aligning the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with Africa's Agenda 2063, improving monitoring and evaluation (M&E) frameworks, and addressing infrastructure and economic structural transformation.

This research paper examines the establishment and potential implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), signed on 21 March 2018. It analyzes the projected economic gains, the challenges posed by varying levels of national development, and the political and technical hurdles that may impede the creation of a continent-wide free trade area.

The document is the 2016 Federal Tax Return (Form 990) for the World Resources Institute (WRI), a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. It details the organization's financial status, governance, and program accomplishments for the 2016 calendar year, including its mission to protect the environment and its capacity to provide for current and future generations.

The May 2018 Peace & Security Council Report examines several African Union (AU) initiatives and regional challenges, including the FemWise-Africa network for women mediators, the proposed AU Humanitarian Agency, the protocol on free movement of people, and the political situation in Liberia and the Horn of Africa. It also features an interview regarding the transformation of the NEPAD Agency into the AU Development Agency.

This policy briefing by the South African Institute of International Affairs evaluates the progress of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance eleven years after its inception. The author argues that while there are normative commitments to democratic consolidation, many African states remain trapped in an 'electoral fallacy' where regular elections occur but democratic governance is not entrenched across institutions. The document identifies internal and external pressures—including the rise of authoritarian models and the prioritization of counter-terrorism over democratic norms—that contribute to democratic deconsolidation.

This report analyzes the effectiveness of peer learning and peer pressure within three Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives (MSIs): the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), the Open Government Partnership (OGP), and the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). It evaluates how these initiatives use mutual dialogue, best practices, and sanctions to improve governance, transparency, and accountability among member states.

This policy brief by the South African Institute of International Affairs examines the implementation of environmental and social (E&S) safeguards for infrastructure projects in sub-Saharan Africa. It focuses on the tension between the prescriptive standards of multilateral development banks (MDBs) and the desire for greater country ownership, specifically analyzing the World Bank's 2016 Environmental and Social Framework (ESF). The author argues for a shift toward country-specific safeguard plans, enhanced capacity building for national entities and state-owned enterprises, and the strengthening of accountability mechanisms to protect affected communities.

This briefing by the Stockholm Environment Institute examines the role of private-sector investment in climate change mitigation within Sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on UNFCCC-backed instruments and national policies to identify effective levers for mobilising finance to meet nationally determined contributions (NDCs).

This March 2018 report from the Institute for Security Studies analyzes the African Union's Peace and Security Council (PSC), focusing on its struggles to implement counter-terrorism frameworks, funding crises facing the AMISOM mission in Somalia, constitutional disputes in Burundi, and structural instability in the CEMAC region of Central Africa.

This report assesses progress toward Goal 4 of the New York Declaration on Forests, which focuses on supporting alternatives to deforestation driven by basic needs, such as subsistence farming and fuelwood collection. The document highlights a significant lack of aggregate global data to measure progress, relying instead on proxy indicators like the distribution of clean cookstoves and related financial funding.