The IMF’s April 2025 Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa presents a clear warning: regional growth is slowing, debt pressures are mounting, and donor assistance is declining. Yet the report outlines critical opportunities particularly in domestic revenue mobilization, structural reform, and private sector activation that can shape a more resilient …
World trade is expected to fall by between 13% and 32% in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupts normal economic activity and life around the world. The wide range of possibilities for the predicted decline is explained by the unprecedented nature of this health crisis and the uncertainty around its …
Today, more than 821 million people regularly go to bed hungry, of whom 100-plus million suffer from acute hunger, largely due to man-made conflicts, climate change and economic downturns.These are the people who will experience the unthinkable due to the economic or logistical consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the …
Implementing adequate social protection measures in response to COVID-19 is critical to saving both lives and livelihoods. Ensuring that these measures reach rural populations will be key to avoid further spread of poverty and hunger. The fight against COVID-19 will be particularly challenging in rural areas. Vulnerable rural populations, in …
The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a toll on human life and brought major disruption to economic activity across the world. Despite a late arrival, the COVID-19 virus has spread rapidly across Sub-Saharan Africa in recent weeks. Economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to decline from 2.4 percent in 2019 …
Decades of high economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region have transformed its socioeconomic landscape – lifting a billion people out of extreme poverty in the past two decades and raising living standards of even greater numbers. However, such growth has been accompanied by growing inequality of income and opportunity and …
EIA forecasts significant decreases in U.S. liquid fuels demand during the first half of 2020 as a result of COVID-19 travel restrictions and significant disruptions to business and economic activity. EIA expects that the largest impacts will occur in the second quarter of 2020, before gradually dissipating over the course …
Since the first ILO Monitor, the COVID-19 pandemic has further accelerated in terms of intensity and expanded its global reach. Full or partial lockdown measures are now affecting almost 2.7 billion workers, representing around 81 per cent of the world’s workforce. In the current situation, businesses across a range of …
Since the first ILO Monitor, the COVID-19 pandemic has further accelerated in terms of intensity and expanded its global reach. Full or partial lockdown measures are now affecting almost 2.7 billion workers, representing around 81 per cent of the world’s workforce.
It is important to assess the socio-economic impact of COVID-19, although the pandemic is at a less advanced stage in Africa, due to its lesser quantity of international migrants’ arrivals relatively to Asia, Europe, and North America and strong precaution measures in some African countries. African economies remain informal and …
The Covid-19 crisis is affecting the entire world economy and that of Africa. Some key sectors of the African economy are already experiencing a slowdown as a result of the pandemic. Tourism, air transport, and the oil sector are visibly impacted. However, invisible impacts of Covid-19 are expected in 2020 …
The global spread of COVID-19 exerts impact on foreign investment policies. The devastating economic effects of the pandemic are expected to drive down global FDI flows by 40%, to its lowst level of the past two decades.
Promoting gender equality has been a key priority of the Government and is also plays a focal role in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Agenda 2030. Gender statistics cuts across all areas of official statistics and provides a lens for policy makers to evolve targeted strategies to address gaps and …
A raging pandemic—unleashed by a highly contagious COVID-19 virus—has triggered unprecedented restrictions not only on the movement of people but also on a range of economic activities, and the declaration of national emergencies in most countries in Europe and North America. Growing demand for urgent healthcare and rising death tolls …
The COVID-19 pandemic is first and foremost a human crisis. Its most direct impact is on health and human well-being. The medical emergency and the public response to it — most importantly restrictions on movement — have also had a dramatic impact on economic activity, and led to significant job …
The pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 is spreading quickly, with 738,000 cases confirmed across the globe and over 35,000 deaths registered as of 30 March 2020 (Johns Hopkins University, Center for Systems Science and Engineering). The number of cases has almost doubled in the last week (from 418,000 cases on 23 …
The COVID-19 pandemic is primarily a health crisis and a human tragedy, but it also has far-reaching economic ramifications. In Africa, it is already disrupting millions of people’s livelihoods, with disproportionate impact on poor households and small and informal businesses—and the pace of this disruption is likely to accelerate in …
The COVID-19-induced global recession, together with the economic effects of steps taken by the South African government to address the pandemic domestically, has made a challenging situation increasingly untenable. Persistently low growth and rising budgetary support for state-owned enterprises had led to a deteriorating debt sustainability outlook prior to the …
The COVID-19 virus that triggered a supply shock in China has now caused a global shock. Developing economies in East Asia and the Pacific (EAP), recovering from a trade war and struggling with a viral disease, now face the prospect of a global financial shock and recession. Significant economic pain …
Growth in the region is expected to slow sharply to 2.2% in 2020 under the effects of the current health emergency and then rebound to 6.2% in 2021. Excluding Asia’s high-income newly industrialized economies, growth will drop from 5.7% to 2.4% this year before recovering to 6.7% next year. Headline …
