The educational landscape across sub-Saharan Africa is marred by daunting challenges, with persistently poor learning outcomes standing out as a cause for urgent concern. Despite decades of concerted interventions, evidence indicates a distressing regression in learning performance over the past half-century. Amidst these pervasive challenges, it is imperative to recognise and explore the modest, yet discernible progress achieved, that lay the groundwork for more transformative developments in education.

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This blog was first published by Education and Development Forum (UKFIET) .

Africa’s largest economy has found itself in an increasingly vulnerable financial position due to several shocks in the past decade. It relied on private creditors to compensate for revenue shortfalls in 2016 and 2017 after the collapse of commodity prices. The COVID-19 pandemic induced more borrowing, this time from multilateral sources. These events have led to the highest external debt levels in Nigeria since 2004.

Increased debt levels clogged financing for key SDG outcomes relating to social welfare sectors more broadly and gender equality and the environment in particular. This paper explored the need for, viability of, and impacts of debt swaps in Nigeria. It focused on two sources of debt that are mostly likely to be involved in a debt swap: Paris Club ODA debt and underperforming private sector debt. These two sources together comprise a sum of more than $3.7 billion whose exchange could free up resources to fund development priorities for facilitators of the debt swap. If the entirety of the eligible debt were to be swapped, it would create an average of nearly $300 million of budgetary resources (per year) for the next six years. Beyond funding development projects, remaining funds could decrease the debt burden, provided they do not beget additional borrowing. The paper also traced the experiences of five countries participating in debt-for-nature swaps.

This Paper was first published by RED SUR as part of the Working Paper of the Project “Promoting a pandemic recovery: evidence to support managing the growing debt crisis” (IDRC - Red Sur N° 109742-001)

Data has become the currency of progress and innovation. Yet, Africa finds itself at the crossroads of a data divide, restricting its economic growth and stifling its entrepreneurial spirit. This brief aims to ignite a transformative shift by providing actionable measures to bridge the data divide, empowering African small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to leverage the power of data for growth and prosperity.

Irrespective of a country’s level of development, public procurement plays a pivotal role in shaping the efficacy of public service delivery and fostering a conducive environment for inclusive growth. In the Nigerian context, deficiencies in public procurement have contributed in part to a poor level of governance and weak state capacity. This is due to the leakages, inefficiencies, and corruption that characterize government procurement. Although quantifying the scale of loss due to inadequate procurement process is challenging, Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency estimates contract and procurement fraud at approximately 2.9 trillion naira ($7.6 billion) over the period 2018 to 2020, which stood at a staggering 10% of the total budgetary allocations for that period.

This Commentary was first published by the Brookings Institution. READ MORE

This study examines the adoption of education technology (Ed-Tech) in primary and secondary education in 10 sub-Saharan African countries: Nigeria, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Cameroon, Benin, Malawi, and Senegal. The study assesses development and implementation of Ed-Tech policies and programmes in the region, exploring how far Ed-Tech has advanced learning outcomes, improved access, and reduced education inequalities within and between countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

This paper was published by the Southern Voice. READ MORE