By Geoff Iyatse
The African Development Bank’s (AfDB) African Economic Outlook (AEO) report 2022 has made an extraordinary impression on leading policymakers in the United States and the United Kingdom who have described the document as evidence-based.
According to documents shared with The Guardian, a delegation of AfDB Group led by Kevin Urama, its Acting Chief Economist and Vice President, was in Washington D.C. on 20th – 29th July, and in London on 1st – 21st August to discuss the AEO, a flagship publication of the Bank which was unveiled in Accra, Ghana, during its yearly general meeting in May.
The two hosts endorsed the publication as a very useful resource for the regional economy. From the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to the World Bank, Center for Global Development, Brookings Institution, Atlantic Council and the University College London, speakers agreed that the AEO provided evidence-based policy options for achieving inclusive growth.
Andrew Steer, CEO of the Bezos Earth Fund, described the research document as “an excellent report that lays out beautifully this sobering time for Africa, in particular, but actually for the whole world.”
“If we want to avoid reinventing the wheel about the climate narrative, then the AEO 2022 is a must-read as we prepare for COP 27, ‘Africa’s COP’,” Aloysius Uche Ordu, the Director of the Africa Growth Initiative at the Brookings Institution, said. Ordu offered actionable policy frameworks that should form the basis for discussions on how to support Africa’s climate resilience at COP 27, the United Nations climate conference scheduled to be held in Egypt in November.
Yacob Mulugetta, a professor of energy and development policy at the University College London, observed that the outlook captures how low-carbon transitions in Africa differ country by country.
Source: https://guardian.ng
