The health impacts of climate change are happening now. This report tells the stories of communities in three countries across Africa. Burkina Faso, Malawi and Somalia were chosen because they are among the African countries most vulnerable to climate change (NDGAIN, 2024). All three countries have recently experienced climate-health events, including heatwaves, cholera outbreaks and tropical cyclones.
Under the weather: Stories from communities on the front lines of climate and health adaptation
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)
During the coronavirus pandemic, disruptions to global supply chains exposed the United Arab Emirates’ vulnerability to food security issues, posing challenges in maintaining consistent food imports. The UAE government successfully ensured supermarket shelves were stocked by swiftly implementing various safeguarding measures.
The UAEs Path to Food Self-Sufficiency
Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington
The world today faces the most wars since World War II. “Great Power Rivalry” has become a major narrative in explaining the trend toward conflict. However, humanism has deep roots in all societies and gives us the means to build coexistence. When we survey the state of international relations today, the overwhelming mood seems to be one of pervasive pessimism. The frameworks of leading thinkers confirm this.
Islam and Great Power Rivalry: Doom and Humanism in International Relations
The Wilson Center
When the Sustainable Development Goals were agreed in 2015, governments ambitiously committed to achieving gender equality as both a standalone and crosscutting objective. Almost a decade later, alarming funding trends are surfacing that leave transformative ambitions for gender equality and women’s empowerment at risk.
Ringing the alarm bell? What recent ODA trends indicate for gender equality
ODI
African economies remain resilient amid multiple shocks, with their average growth projected to stabilize at 4.0 percent in 2024–25, nearly a one percentage point higher than the 3.1 percent estimated in 2023.
Reading of the Week: African Economic Outlook 2024
African Development Bank Group
Mosquito vector populations sufficient to maintain malaria transmission occur within a particular range of temperatures and humidity that are suitable for their survival and breeding. The parasite also needs suitable temperatures to complete its mosquito life stages. And mosquitoes need surface water to breed in. These conditions have to last long enough for mosquito and parasite populations to grow.
Mapping malaria in Africa: climate change study predicts where mosquitoes will breed in future
The Conversation
In February 2024, the United Nations Environment Assembly, UNEA-6, took a significant step toward addressing the challenge of environmental scars of armed conflict. UNEA-6, held in Nairobi, Kenya, aimed to tackle the planet’s most pressing environmental issues – a complex web of problems often referred to as the "triple planetary crisis".
Strengthening Environmental Resilience in Conflict Zones: Analysis of UNEA-6 Resolution and the PERAC Principles
Brussels International Center
We examine the resilience of the Senegalese and Malian economies in the face of the main shocks they faced between 2000 and 2022 and the policy responses adopted to counter their impact. The study shows that Mali has experienced more internal shocks than Senegal, mainly due to its vulnerability to climatic, political, health and security problems
Macroeconomic Resilience: The Cases of Senegal and Mali
South African Institute of International Affairs
One year into the civil war in Sudan, the crisis facing the country and the region is only intensifying. Since the eruption of violence between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF)—rival factions of the country’s military—in April 2023, humanitarian needs have skyrocketed. More than 8.6 million people have been forced to flee, making it the largest displacement crisis in the world.
Sudans Crisis Requires a New Approach to International Aid
Lawfare
The Lebanon Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) aligns the country’s short-term recovery needs with resilient, low-carbon, long-term development, building on quantitative modeling-based analytics, existing research and country diagnostics, and extensive stakeholder consultations to study the effects of climate change on Lebanon’s recovery and development objectives.
Lebanon Country Climate and Development Report
World Bank Group
This report synthesizes the evidence on the impact of the war and its implications on food security in Africa based on country case studies covering Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Morocco, Mozambique, Senegal, South Africa and Sudan, as well as Africa-wide studies utilizing econometric modelling techniques. The studies examine the transmission channels of the impact of the Russia–Ukraine war on African economies and their resilience
Impact of the Russia-Ukraine war on Africa: Policy implications for navigating shocks and building resilience
ODI Policy brief
Macroeconomic resilience is crucial for sustainable development. Nigeria and Ghana, two prominent West African countries, have faced unique challenges and opportunities in building such resilience. These two countries have experienced a range of economic shocks over the past two decades, including natural disasters, commodity price fluctuations, financial crises and global economic downturns.
Enhancing Macroeconomic Resilience: A Comparative Analysis of Nigeria and Ghana
South African Institute of International Affairs
West Africa is one of the world’s most vibrant and diverse regions; home to over 400 million people, around 1 200 languages and many different religious and ethnic identities. The region’s economic growth since the turn of the century has been impressive, resulting in a significant reduction in absolute levels of poverty. Nevertheless, with rampant insecurity at the hands of violent extremists, armed groups and criminal bandits, political instability, limited economic opportunities for the region’s burgeoning youth population and the worsening impact of climate change, West Africa faces many complex challenges.
Reading Of The Week: 2023 West Africa organised crime resilience framework
Global Initiative
The increasing frequency and magnitude of climate-exacerbated hazards, coupled with the growing vulnerability of societies worldwide, are raising the financial costs of disasters. Governments finance a larger share of these costs through post-disaster measures. However, reducing risk and optimizing the allocation of pre-disaster resources can reduce the negative financial impact on governments.
Managing Disaster Costs
ETH Zurich
Physical and electronic infrastructure must be in place to support digital identification, document exchange, payment and online trade in Africa. Physical or ’hard‘ infrastructure includes a reliable power supply, internet connectivity and secure data-storage facilities. This infrastructure enables broadband internet access, providing a foundation for individual and business participation in the digital economy.
Strengthening Africas Digital Infrastructure for Greater Economic Resilience
The South African Institute for International Affairs
With increasing frequency of disasters and consequent damages, the need for high-quality, accessible and timely information on the likelihood and impacts of hydrological hazards cannot be overemphasized. ClimDev Africa Special Fund (CDSF) facilitates the development and use of climate services to effectively address the growing challenges of climate and weather disasters in Africa. The Fund has contributed to strengthening the capacities of regional, national, and local institutions as well as communities to enhance monitoring, forecasting and early warning systems.
Strengthening the Capacity to Reduce Africas Vulnerability to Climate and Weather Disasters
African Development Bank Group
Despite some progress having been made, a large proportion of the African population is excluded from the digital economy due to physical infrastructure barriers.
Strengthening Africas Digital Infrastructure for Greater Economic Resilience
The South African Institute of International Affairs
Communal conflicts between farmers and herders in Borgou have multiple driving forces. This report explores one of these: changing land management systems. It is argued that recent changes in land management are in any event likely to become a stronger driver of tensions in Borgou in the near future.
Twilight Institutions: Land conflict and hybrid authorities in Benins Borgou department
Clingendael
Communal conflicts between farmers and herders in Borgou have multiple driving forces. This report explores one of these: changing land management systems. It is argued that recent changes in land management are in any event likely to become a stronger driver of tensions in Borgou in the near future.
Twilight Institutions: Land conflict and hybrid authorities in Benins Borgou department
Clingendael
Despite progress made in female participation in public, political, and economic life, the MENA region still faces challenges in achieving gender equality. This newsletter provides expert analysis and informed insights on the MENA region’s most significant issues and trends, bringing together unique opinions on the topic and reliable foresight on possible future scenarios.
Women in the MENA Region: Between Progresses and Obstacles
Italian Institute for International Political Studies
La plupart des écosystèmes arides et semi-arides d’Afrique sont dédiés à différents types d’élevage extensif. Ces systèmes sont des acteurs majeurs dans la valorisation des espaces, et des ressources naturelles. En plus de nourrir les humains et les animaux, l’élevage pastoral fournit un revenu de subsistance à des populations qui ne pourraient survivre autrement dans ces régions.
Le pastoralisme en péril en Afrique
Policy Center for the New South
This paper contributes to the scholarship on gender and migration through empirical insights into motherhood while in transit and smuggling. It explores how undocumented, West African migrant mothers experience and navigate the temporal and spatial confinement of the Tunisian–Libyan borderlands, border enforcement and counter-smuggling policies confining them and their children to the limbo of indefinite waiting, danger, and uncertainty that they can, however, address through smuggling journeys.
Reading of the week: A Mothers Choice - Undocumented motherhood, waiting and smuggling in the Tunisian-Libyan borderlands
Danish Institute for International Studies
Conflicts and violence all over the world exacerbate social and gender inequalities, with a negative impact on the lives of many women and girls. Moreover, a concentration of power in the hands of men has often prevented women from being structurally included in government policies, with their rights threatened. Yet, there is a strong presence of women peacebuilders who contribute to promoting solutions that can ensure lasting peace, thus opposing extremist tendencies.
Women and Conflicts: What Role for Women Mediator Networks?
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Liberia exhibits a high reliance on imports of staple foods which is worsened by vulnerability to market shocks, supply chain disruptions and global food-price volatility, especially due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis. The Liberia Food and Agriculture Delivery Compact outlines a plan increase local productivity in four priority value chains-rice, rubber, cassava and livestock - in order to reduce reliance on imports and provide an essential platform for interministerial coordination in agriculture.
Liberia Country Food and Agriculture Delivery Compact
African Development Bank Group
In Sudan, the revolutionary upsurge of 2018/2019 signaled the implosion of the country’s postcolonial political order. The political parties of old have seen their social bases wither away and their ideological hold over the Sudanese people corrode under the sustained pressure of a hyper-extractive political economy.
The Price of Life: Revolutionary Agency and Political Impasse in Post-Bashir Sudan
Rift Valley Institute
This Green Deal Watch presents a general analytical foreword, followed by the in-depth monitoring of Green Deal activities, divided according to a breakdown revolving around a set of four dimensions, designed to match the guidelines so far expressed by the von der Leyen Commission (driving the Green Deal; greening industry; supporting the transformation; and strengthening security and diplomacy). These four dimensions are followed by an in-depth section, where we will cover different kinds of content in each issue.
Green Deal Watch: Building Energy
Istituto Affari Internazionali
The COVID-19 pandemic plunged Africa into its worst recession in more than 50 years, causing a 2.1% drop in Africa’s gross domestic product in 2020 and pushing about 30 million Africans into extreme poverty in 2021. Already grappling with poverty and unemployment, the continent lost about 22 million jobs in 2021 (African Development Bank Group, 2021, 2022). In a bid to slow the spread of the coronavirus, at least 42 African countries enforced restrictions such as lockdowns, curfews, border closures, travel bans, and the suspension of sports and recreational activities, all of which hindered income-generating activities (African Development Bank Group, 2021).
Africans see unfair distribution of COVID-19-relief assistance, loss of resources to corruption
Afro barometer
Cholera continues to sweep through Syria and Lebanon at an alarming pace, leaving thousands sick and hundreds dead in its wake, with only a small fraction of cases officially registered in databases. Nevertheless, it is clear that the number of cases of the bacterial disease in both countries is steadily increasing, with UNICEF estimating the total in Syria at 35,569 while the Ministry of Public Health puts that in Lebanon at 3,369.
Syria and Lebanon at risk from rapidly spreading cholera epidemic
Middle East Institute
Events such as the 2014–16 West Africa Ebola epidemic, the 2018–20 Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Ebola outbreak and the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic have demonstrated the impacts of infectious disease outbreaks on the whole of society. These natural examples have highlighted the interconnectedness of the world and the need for collaborative international efforts to improve biological security to mitigate the spread of disease outbreaks
Opportunities for the European Union to Strengthen Biosecurity in Africa
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
The COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have shaken confidence in the reliability of fragmented global value chains (GVCs) as a means to integrate the global economy. Supplychain disruptions during the pandemic boosted the voices of those claiming that cost optimization achieved through GVCs came at the cost of reduced resilience in the face of localized shocks that tend to affect whole chains. The war in Ukraine, meanwhile, has raised the profile of geopolitical risks as an additional factor to be reckoned with in the configuration of – and reliance on – GVCs. The pandemic and the war, followed by commodity price shocks and together with more frequent weather-related shocks, have comprised what has been called a “perfect storm” (Canuto, 2020) hitting the global economy
Pandemic, War, and Global Value Chains
Policy Center for the New South
The objective of this report is threefold. First, it provides an overview of the COVID-19 impact on Jordan and the associated government’s response. The latter was necessary but not sufficient, especially when it comes to the support provided to households and firms. Second, using both macroeconomic and microeconomic datasets, we examine the effect of the COVID-19 on the economy. Indeed, we show how the structural characteristics of the Jordanian economy amplified the impact of the pandemic. Finally, we provide some policy recommendations to curb the negative effects of this shock at different levels (especially monetary, fiscal, social, and trade policies).
Investigating the Effects of COVID-19 on the Jordanian Economy
Economic Research Forum
The Multilateralism Index (MI) is the first known attempt to quantifiably assess the state of the multilateral system. It focuses on developments in the multilateral system over the past decade across five domains: Peace and Security, Human Rights, Environment, Public Health, and Trade. The domains are evaluated across a total of sixty-five indicators covering three dimensions: Participation, Performance, and Inclusivity.
Multilateralism Index: Pilot Report
International Peace Institute
Creating the foundation for transforming the G5 Sahel countries from power fragility to power resilience by establishing sustainable and widespread energy supplies aptly summarizes the objectives of 2021 for the Desert to Power (DtP) Initiative. In this second year of the Initiative, the focus of the African Development Bank and its partners has been to support the G5 Sahel countries to identify and prepare priority projects; a difficult task while also negotiating the challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic and continued socio-political instability.
Reading of the Week: Progress Report - Transforming the G5 Sahel countries from Fragility to Resilience in the Energy Sector
African Development Bank Group
The research found that even during periods of high economic growth, most African countries failed to transform – exhibiting limited improvements in the economic diversification of production and exports, export competitiveness, and productivity and technological upgrading, putting at risk the steady progress on improved human economic well-being. Countries that do not transform are less resilient, meaning they are unable to withstand shocks and to quickly and strongly recover when negatively impacted, which can reverse progress on human economic well-being.
Policies for resilience and economic transformation in Africa: setting the agenda for a post-COVID-19 era
African Center for Economic Transformation
This research aimed to assess the extent to which mental health and psycho-social support (MHPSS) was included in the national response to the COVID-19 pandemic in African countries, and explore barriers and enablers to MHPSS integration into the COVID-19 response. A mixed-methods study, using an online survey and in-depth interviews, was conducted. Participants included Mental Health Focal Points at the Ministries of Health, the World Health Organization (WHO) country and regional offices, and civil society representatives
Challenges and Opportunities for Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in the COVID-19 Response in Africa
Africa CDC
As the frequency of natural disasters and civil conflicts spikes globally, rapid response systems, the likes of early warning systems facilitating rapid intervention, assume prominence (Smith & Frankenberger, 2018). While such interventions alleviate crises, they seldom address the underlying vulnerability. Occasionally, the short-term interventions generate serial dependence of individuals and households on aid and handouts (Alinovi et al., 2008; Bene et al., 2016). Some of these concerns motivate the recent calls for the resilience approach to development, whereby building resilience capacity becomes a primary concern of development planning and emergency interventions (Tendall et al., 2015).
The Boko Haram Conflict and Food Insecurity: Does Resilience Capacity Matter?
Center For The Studies of African Economies (CSAE)
The livelihoods of rural communities depend primarily on the availability of and access to renewable resources, including water, land and living resources. These resources are components of ecosystems with complex and dynamic relationships. Holling (1973) and Gunderson (2000) have shown that these ecosystems have their own capacity or resilience to adapt to external pressures induced by humans and large-scale environmental changes.
Policy Brief - The importance of Riverine and Floodplain Fisheries for Livelihood Resilience in Africa
African Development Bank Group
The Brussels International Center organized a webinar event “Healthcare and Politics in the Europe-Africa Partnership: Improving Policy and Discourse” that brought together policy makers, practitioners, advisors, and NGOs together to discuss some of the key obstacles facing better Europe Africa trans-continental policy and practice while implementing healthcare strategies in African countries.
Challenging the Europe Africa Partnership on Healthcare: Redressing the Balance
Brussels International Center (BIC)