Africa’s Development Dynamics uses lessons from Central, East, North, Southern and West Africa to develop policy recommendations and share good practices across the continent. Drawing on the most recent statistics, the analysis of development dynamics aims to assist African leaders in reaching the targets of the African Union’s Agenda 2063 at all levels: continental, regional, national and local.

Africa’s Development Dynamics uses lessons from Central, East, North, Southern and West Africa to develop policy recommendations and share good practices. The 2022 edition explores how developing regional value chains can help African countries rebound from the socio-economic shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic and accelerate productive transformation.

This edited volume provides a critical evaluation of financing options for sustainable development in Africa. While sustainability has long been the watchword for development programs, and while many African countries have taken initiatives to develop integrated frameworks that tackle developmental challenges—including poverty, education, and health—financing has remained a challenge. In this book, an expert team of chapter authors examines new financing options while also exploring how traditional financing means, such as foreign aid and foreign direct investment, can be more effective for sustainability. The authors discuss how African nations can build adequate structures and productive capacity to create a platform that can meet present economic, social, and environmental needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Practical case studies and scientific evidence give this book a unique approach that is both qualitative and quantitative. This book will be of interest to students, practitioners, and scholars of development studies, public policy and African economics.

The book draws upon the expertise and international research collaborations forged by the Worldwide Universities Network Global Africa Group to critically engage with the intersection, in theory and practice, of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Africa’s development agendas and needs. Further, it argues that – and demonstrates how – the SDGs should be understood as an aspirational blueprint for development with multiple meanings that are situated in dynamic and contested terrains. As the SDGs have substantial implications for development policy and resourcing at both the macro and micro levels, their relevance is not only context-specific but should also be assessed in terms of the aspirations and needs of ordinary citizens across the continent. Drawing on analyses and evidence from both the natural and social sciences, the book demonstrates that progress towards the SDGs must meet demands for improving human well-being under diverse and challenging socio-economic, political and environmental conditions. Examples include those from the mining industry, public health, employment and the media. In closing, it highlights how international collaboration in the form of research networks can enhance the production of critical knowledge on and engagement with the SDGs in Africa.

Millennium development goals (MDGs) and sustainable development goals (SDGs) have significant implications for global development, in particular for African countries. This book seeks to assist Africa’s policy makers and political leaders, MNCs and NGOs, plus its increasingly heterogeneous media landscape, to understand and better respond or negotiate the evolving development environment of the 21st century. In this collection of nuanced essays, the contributors interrogate the relationship between the MDGs and SDGs in key areas of African development to enhance our understanding and knowledge of the evolving nature of development. They address issues of governance, agriculture, south-south cooperation in a context of foreign aid, natural resource governance and sustainable development, export diversification and economic growth as well as emerging topics such as the internet of things or the sharing economy, climate change, conflict and non-traditional security. The varied, yet interlinked foci present a holistic overview of Africa’s development aspirations, and ability to transform the SDGs’ universal aspirations into local realities. This book will be of use to academics and students in Development Studies, Contemporary African Studies, Political Science, Policy Studies and Geography, and should also appeal to policy makers and development practitioners.