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 …
Sub-Saharan Africa’s recovery has been abruptly interrupted. Last year, activity finally bounced back, lifting GDP growth in 2021 to 4.7 percent. But growth in 2022 is expected to slow sharply by more than 1 percentage point to 3.6 percent, as a worldwide slowdown, tighter global financial conditions, and a dramatic …
Rural economies are key to ensure food security and creating decent jobs. Yet the global context dominated by the impact of multiple and interlinked crises has laid bare prevailing decent work deficits, with many rural workers living in poverty and working informally. This policy brief looks at the transformative changes …
Global economic activity is experiencing a broad-based and sharper-than-expected slowdown, with inflation higher than seen in several decades. The cost-of-living crisis, tightening financial conditions in most regions, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the lingering COVID-19 pandemic all weigh heavily on the outlook. Global growth is forecast to slow from 6.0 …
The 2022 Commitment to Reducing Inequality (CRI) Index is the first detailed analysis published looking at governments’ policies and actions to fight inequality during the first two years of the pandemic. It reviews the spending, tax and labour policies and actions of 161 governments during 2020–2022. COVID-19 has increased inequality …
The creative economy is one of the world’s fastest-growing sectors. These industries create employment and income, promote innovation, and contribute to societies’ well-being. The creative economy offers a feasible development option to all countries and in particular to developing economies. More data and innovative and multidisciplinary policy responses are needed …
South Asia is facing renewed challenges. The impact of the Russia-Ukraine war on food and energy prices on domestic inflation is long-lasting. Externally, countries’ current account balances deteriorate rapidly as imports rise on the back of economic recovery and rising inflation, remittances decline, and foreign capital flows out following monetary …
Overall consumption of primary processed wood products is expected to grow 37 percent by 2050 in a business-as-usual scenario, according to this report published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The global threats to climate, biodiversity and a healthy environment are mainly caused by the …
African economies are facing a series of challenges to their post-pandemic recovery. Economic activity in the region is slowing to 3.3 percent amid global headwinds, including weak global growth and tightening global financial conditions. Elevated inflation rates and resulting policy tightening, as well as the rising risk of debt distress, …
This report contains a systematic analysis that sheds light on each component of digital finance and on how the components are linked with gender equality and women’s economic empowerment. It addresses five key challenges that limit the use of digital finance to promote women’s empowerment in Africa. The first challenge …
The Trade and Development Report 2022 warns that monetary and fiscal policy moves in advanced economies risk pushing the world towards global recession and prolonged stagnation, inflicting worse damage than the financial crisis in 2008 and the COVID-19 shock in 2020. According to the report, rapid interest rate increases and …
Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2022: Correcting Course provides the first comprehensive analysis of the pandemic’s toll on poverty in developing countries. It identifies how governments can optimize fiscal policy to help correct course. Fiscal policies offset the impact of COVID-19 on poverty in many high-income countries, but those policies offset …
In an earlier paper (Dev and Sengupta, 2020) had discussed the potential and immediate impact of the shock of the Covid-19 pandemic on various segments of the Indian economy. In this paper, which is a sequel to the previous study, dig deeper into how the Indian economy fared during the …
After the strong rebound of 6.5 percent posted in 2021, growth in Asia and Pacific is expected to moderate to 4.0 percent in 2022 amid an uncertain global environment and rise to 4.3 percent in 2023. Inflation has risen above most central bank targets, but is expected to peak in …
This report assesses recent progress in poverty reduction in Zanzibar. It is based on Zanzibar’s last three household budget surveys and considers the period between 2009 and 2019, with a focus on the last four years of this decade: 2015–2019. Poverty — based on household consumption — fell by 9 …
The 2022 edition of the Global Innovation Index (GII) tracks the most recent global innovation trends against the background of an ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, slowing productivity growth and other evolving challenges. It reveals the most innovative economies in the world, ranking the innovation performance of around 132 economies while highlighting …
The world is facing a series of multiple and interlinked crises; a perfect storm that is testing the limits of current development paradigms. As countries and cities across Asia and the Pacific struggle to recover from the socioeconomic crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis continues to ravage …
This report reviews the experiences of market linkage programs implemented globally, particularly those focused on poor smallholders, including women, as beneficiaries and farmers who participated in government social safety net schemes. The report highlights lessons learned by program implementers, governments, and other stakeholders related to efforts to link extremely poor …
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today released its sixth annual Goalkeepers Report, noting that nearly every indicator of the UN Sustainable Development Goals is off track at the halfway point for achieving them by 2030. Despite significant setbacks caused by overlapping global crises, the report is optimistic, underscoring opportunities …
Continuing the thread of the 2019 and 2020 HDRs, 2021/22 HDR carries forward a conversation centered on inequalities while integrating other important themes related to uncertainties in the Anthropocene: societal-level transformations, mental health impacts, political polarization, but also, crucially, opportunity. The Report will explore how uncertainty in the Anthropocene is …
Decent work entails equality of opportunity and treatment at work, dignity and safety in the workplace, a fair income and the freedom for workers to organize and participate in decisions related to their work and lives. It provides workers with access to social protection and health care, thereby ensuring that …
