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 …
This policy brief assesses the impact and opportunities for developing countries of the boom in demand for raw materials entering into the production of electric vehicle batteries. In particular, it describes how trade policy could play an important role in helping them capture value from this expansion while managing the …
As part of a plan to decarbonize its economy by 2050, the European Union is considering the introduction of a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), to reduce the risk of carbon leakage and to level the field for European industries working towards decarbonization of their production processes. Using a general …
The 2021 edition of the Commodities and Development Report explores how technological development and innovation can help commodity-dependent developing countries (CDDCs) achieve economic diversification and value addition. The report, entitled "Escaping from the commodity dependence trap through technology and innovation", highlights that most developing countries are commodity dependent and that …
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profoundly sudden and damaging impact on economies on a truly global scale. Developing countries and advanced economies are expected to experience diverging recovery pathways in the aftermath of the pandemic. An unprecedented level of stimulus finance is likely to help developed countries put their …
This study provides an overview of the emerging market electricity leapfrog. It demonstrates that emerging markets will not follow the same path to renewables as the developed markets. The study discusses how the developing countries are about to leapfrog fossil fuels in this decade to generate all the growth in …
Many developing countries consider that international support is vital for achieving their climate targets and accelerating actions, pledged in the so-called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), under the Paris Agreement. Thus, understanding what kind of international support they need is crucial for ensuring the provision of adequate support. This paper presents …
The crash in international tourism due to the coronavirus pandemic could cause a loss of more than $4 trillion to the global GDP for the years 2020 and 2021, according to an UNCTAD report. The estimated loss has been caused by the pandemic’s direct impact on tourism and its ripple …
In many countries, particularly developing ones, onsite wastewater systems remain an important measure for sanitation management. The poor situation of onsite sanitation systems is a common phenomenon in both developed and developing countries. The fundamental issue of onsite systems is that they are not considered to be a public matter, …
Border carbon adjustments imply that high-income countries set taxes on energy-intensive imports that are proportional to the carbon content of these imports, to match their own carbon taxes. This paper considers the impacts of such a policy on exporter countries, many of which have no or very low carbon taxes …
While there are many ways can help lessen the climate impact of transport, one key priority is to manage motorization more effectively. In developing countries, the number of vehicles on the road is expected to double in the next 15-20 years, and much of that growth will come from used …
This brief summarizes findings of a project entitled “Food Security in Developing Countries: Gender and Spatial Interactions’” undertaken by researchers from the University of Alberta. The project uses a large cross-sectional dataset from the Integrated Modelling Platform for Mixed Animal Crop systems (IMPACT) Lite collected by Climate Change, Agriculture, and …
As humanity’s demand on natural resources is increasingly exceeding Earth’s biological rate of regeneration, environmental deterioration such as greenhouse gas accumulation in the atmosphere, ocean acidification and groundwater depletion is accelerating. As a result, the capacity of ecosystems to renew biomass, herein referred to as ‘biocapacity’, is becoming the material …
Agroecology is increasingly seen as being able, or even necessary, to transform food systems (HLPE 2019). The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and the CGIAR Research Programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) commissioned this rapid evidence-based review to assess the quality and strength of evidence regarding …
This report examines how the OECD-led global digital tax reforms could lead to lost mining investment and revenue in developing countries if issues related to temporary timing differences are not addressed. This report follows a broader IGF briefing note on the implications for the mining sector of the latest blueprints …
The triple COVID-19, economic, and climate crisis poses a growing challenge to debt sustainability and financing for climate action. There are growing calls to look for solutions for the three crisis together, notably through “debt-for-climate” swaps. Though not a general panacea, such proposals may represent an attractive option for both …
Over the past decades and in multiple countries, bioenergy has supported the development of local economies, while helping to reduce the dependency on imported fossil fuels. If bioenergy resources are produced sustainably, their energy use can contribute to the reduction of GHG emissions. Several bioenergy case studies presented in this …
With the rapid increase in the dynamics caused by climate change, policies governing climate change have proliferated while the integration of gender considerations to address the gender-differentiated needs and impacts has remained a challenge. Stakeholder engagement is touted as a critical ingredient in climate change decisions and governance at different …
This report identifies ways to overcome key barriers to private sector investment in adaptation and resilience, laying out a coordinated and data-driven Blueprint for Action to help governments and their development partners to close the adaptation finance gap. Although climate adaptation finance flows have increased by 35% in recent years, …
The Green Climate Fund is a globally important source of finance for projects in developing countries that address climate goals. Central to the GCF’s formation is an emphasis on providing funds directly to developing country institutions. Through “direct access” it seeks to fund a diverse set of stakeholders including public, …
For CCS to fulfill its potential in reducing significant global emissions, this technology must be deployed in all parts of the world. Yet there are currently very few CCS projects in developing countries. This report was commissioned by ClearPath and Southern Company to examine the role of climate finance in …
