The March 2018 signing of the framework agreement to form a continental free-trade zone throughout Africa is raising a lot of expectations. In fact, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) would be the largest free trade agreement since the founding of the World Trade Organization. It will include 1 billion people and up to USD 3 trillion of cumulative GDP. More...
Fundamental to my organisation’s success in delivering local impact against several of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has been developing an ecosystem of global and local in-country partners. And critical to this ecosystem is private sector participation: Corporate partners bring a different lens on what we do, a welcome push for innovation, creative approaches and efficiencies, and a business-like approach and priority to sustainability. More...
Intermediary cities are the fastest growing cities in the developing world. Often referred to as secondary or second-tier cities, intermediary cities typically have a population of between 50,000 and one million people. They play a fundamental role in connecting both rural and urban areas to basic facilities and services. More...
In its most recent round of surveys in nine African countries, the Afrobarometer revealed that 64% of Africans do not wish to emigrate. Of the remaining 37% who have considered leaving their countries, almost half would like to relocate to another country in their immediate region (37%) or to other parts of Africa (10%). Only 20% would consider Europe as a destination should they actually emigrate. Others opt for North America and Asia. More...
On 27 November 1095, Pope Urban declared the crusades ostensibly a religious call, but one that reinforced the power of the spiritual over the temporal. To support the crusades, the church built a financial institution by leveraging the Templars under the Papal bull Omnes Datum Optimum, creating a monastic banking system that gave birth to such financial innovations as letters of credit, banking and, by extension, fiduciary products like trusts. More...
At the OECD’s origin, we find the 1947 Marshall Plan that re-industrialised a war-torn Europe. At the very core of the Marshall Plan was a profound understanding of the relationship between a nation’s economic structure and its carrying capacity in terms of population density. We argue that it is necessary to rediscover this theoretical understanding now, in the mutual interest of Africa and Europe. More...
Posted by . New technologies, globalisation and population ageing are affecting the type and quality of jobs that are available, and the skills required to do them. In many countries the number of manufacturing jobs, for example, is decreasing. New jobs requiring new combinations of skills, such as data scientists or social media managers, are emerging in their place. More...
By . Bali, where the 2018 OECD Economic Survey of Indonesia is being released, is emblematic of Indonesia’s success in creating a popular tourism brand. The number of foreign tourists arriving in Bali soared from 2.5 million in 2010 to 5.7 million in 2017. In 2014, the authorities committed to replicate this success in “10 new Balis” with the aim of doubling tourist numbers to 20 million by 2019. More...
By . Located at the centre of the Baltic States, Latvia’s capital city Riga and its surrounding municipalities are a strategically important logistic centre with access to markets in Europe and Russia. It is the largest city in the Baltic States and the third largest in the Region of the Baltic Sea. More...
By . Global growth is projected to be at 3.7% in 2018 and 2019 in our latest Interim Economic Outlook, which remains an elevated pace. At the same time, it also reflects weaker prospects than anticipated just a few months ago, and some fragilities. Growth performance has become less synchronised across the world: while it remains strong in the United States, India and China, it has faltered in many other economies. More...
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