Research and Analytics
Research and Analytics
Many countries have stepped up in the global fight against the pandemic, as have institutions such as the World Health Organization, the World Bank, Gavi (the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization), the African Union, and others.
Yet, more than a year into the COVID-19 crisis, new cases worldwide are higher than ever. Urgent action is needed to arrest the rising human toll and economic strain.
Since President Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election in 2019, the country has faced a myriad of social and economic challenges. Inflation had surged from 11.40% in May 2019 to 17.33% last month; the Naira has been devalued three times, losing 33% of its value, insecurity has increased, and the general investment climate has waned. All these have happened while Nigerians have not seen any meaningful increase in their economic welfare: the country slumped into a second recession in five years. Many states have found it challenging to implement the new minimum wage signed into law in 2019. We also note that even if all the states had implemented the new minimum wage, the total number of civil servants to the entire labour force is considerably low. To sum it, you would still be worse off if you hold 2X the same Naira note you had in 2010 today.
Just as COVID-19 has disproportionately impacted some communities more than others, globally, the virus has had an over-sized negative impact on migrant workers.
The next few weeks mark the beginning of the school year across the northern hemisphere. Per the World Bank School Closure data, (School Closures and Affected Students by country; a World Bank tracking tool) sixty-seven countries, almost half of them located in Europe and Central Asia, have reopened or are expecting to reopen schools by September. This year, the safety of students and teachers vis-a-vis the coronavirus (COVID-19) spread is top priority.
This exposition tries to carry out a comparative analysis between Nigeria and selected economies in Africa. South Africa in Southern Africa, Egypt from Northern Africa, Kenya from East Africa and our neighbour (Ghana) in the same West African coast.
By Jim Anderson / World Bank The World Bank’s commitment to helping countries control corruption dates to 1996 when then President James Wolfensohn made his “cancer of corruption” speech. It was the first time the issue was given such prominence by a World Bank President and put squarely on the agenda of the institution. A […]
It is important to emphasize that the World Bank’s income classifications use the GNI of the previous year (2019 in this case). Thus, the GNI numbers that are used for this year’s classification do not yet reflect the impact of COVID-19.
While the economic scale of the crisis grabs attention, and could even paralyze us, the human toll is even more pressing. Millions of lives in the poorest countries are on the precipice. The contagion they face isn’t just the virus, as devastating as that will be, but its travelling companions of poverty, deprivation, even starvation.
By JACOB BATHANTI and DEBRA LADNER / Image Credit: World Bank As COVID-19 (coronavirus) spreads around the world, governments and development organizations are thinking hard about how to respond effectively. Trajectories of the epidemic have varied widely among countries as governments adopt a range of policies to contain it. These efforts raise the question of […]
With an estimation that over half of global population growth through 2050 will come from Africa (UN Estimates), the continent has the world’s fastest growing population. The continent is a 2.49 trillion dollars economy in terms of GDP (a total of 54 countries) and it houses around 1.2 billion people. The aim of this research is therefore to provide macroeconomic analysis of four countries (Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt and South Africa) given the fact that they constitute the largest markets of Financial Technology in Africa.
