Dealing with Africa’s infrastructure backlogs and its future demands is high on the agenda of leaders and civil society on the continent and abroad. While the continent’s infrastructure currently lags behind that of the rest of the world with some 30 per cent in a dilapidated condition, there is widespread recognition of the vast business […]
Key Facts
How open data can increase transparency in the aid sector
The International Aid Transparency Initiative is helping translate the data revolution into increased accountability and better coordination within the aid sector. But can standards alone push civil society organizations, donors and governments to open up? Devex spoke to several experts during last month’s International Open Data Conference in Ottawa, Canada, to understand how aid organizations, […]
Africa Leaders sign ‘Cape to Cairo’ free trade bloc deal
African leaders signed Wednesday a 26-nation free trade pact to create a common market that would span half the continent from Cairo to Cape Town. The Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) deal, which must still be fine-tuned and ratified, caps five years of talks to set up a framework for preferential tariffs to ease the […]
Emerging Markets: Trading Blow
After years of boosting global growth, developing economies now a major drag on world economy- It was only five years ago, but it feels like a different era. Roger Agnelli, the then chief executive of Vale, the Brazilian mining company, had just taken delivery of the first of an order of 35 Valemax ships, the […]
SGDs and the private sector: Creating a win-win scenario
End poverty. End Hunger. Provide full employment. These are just three of the items on humanity’s greatest wish list — the new sustainable development goals, expected to be finalized by the United Nations this fall. It is impossible to imagine coming close to achieving these goals, and the 14 others, without the private sector. With […]
TFA could cut trade costs by up to 17.5%, says OECD
Full implementation of the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) trade facilitation agreement (TFA) could reduce global trade costs by up to 17.5%, according to the OECD. The 2015 OECD trade facilitation indicators (TFIs) have determined that developing countries have the greatest opportunities for trade cost reduction through the TFA, as most upper middle and high income […]
Toward a Migration Development Bank for Transition Economies
Labor migration and remittances may bring positive economic effects to developing countries. This is the case particularly in countries like those in Eastern Europe and Former Soviet Union members where remittances constitute high shares of foreign-currency revenues and GDP. There is nevertheless clear evidence of an untapped development potential associated with those flows of labor […]