The report examines the new technologies and manufacturing trends that African countries need to embrace to allow viable local production attractive domestic markets for foreign companies (including relocation of production to the continent) and innovative supply chain practices. The report recommends key policy options best practices and strategic guidance needed to support African decision- and policy-makers in leveraging the potential of African national and regional markets and businesses to foster domestic supply chains and create a trusted and reliable supplier marketplace for global supply chains and thus contribute to expanding Africa’s contribution to global trade and growth.

The African Continental Free Trade Area is expected to be a game changer for development ambitions in Africa. The design of the Agreement Establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area reflects an explicit commitment to create a framework for deeper socioeconomic integration and improved cooperation that enables trade investment and the mobility of people to support industrialization and the development of a dynamic services sector. Such achievements could ultimately generate decent jobs and increase revenue and thereby contribute to inclusive growth on the continent. A greater emphasis on deeper intraregional trade cross-border investments in infrastructure and fostering “made in Africa” trade and industrialization policies is key to the continent’s future prosperity and resilience to global financial food-related climatic and pandemic-related shocks. For the African Continental Free Trade Area to be a game changer countries in Africa need to adopt policies that enhance consistency between trade measures diversification objectives and inclusivity. Unless this is accomplished the Free Trade Area may be restricted to a trade liberalization agenda and thereby not fulfil the hopes and aspirations of the people of Africa. If effectively implemented the African Continental Free Trade Area can help address challenges emanating from the excessive reliance in Africa on the supply of primary commodities and goods embodying limited value added to world markets.

Tourism - in terms of its contribution to GDP employment and trade - is a critical sector for many African economies and its growth is increasingly driven by tourists originating from the continent itself. However most African countries still face significant challenges and constraints in exploiting the potential of tourism services in trade and economic development. The Economic Development in Africa Report 2017 subtitled Tourism for trans-formative and inclusive growth: Re-thinking the policy agenda examines the role that tourism can play in Africa's development process. It aims to identify key barriers and impediments to unlocking the potential of tourism in Africa to help structurally transform the continent's economy and provides policy recommendations on how these barriers and impediments could be addressed. It argues that tourism can be an engine for inclusive growth and that it can complement development strategies aimed at fostering economic diversification and structural transformation within an appropriate policy context.

This publication examines the status of industrial development in Africa with a focus on the identification of stylized facts associated with African manufacturing. It provides an analysis of past attempts at promoting industrial development in the region and the lessons learned from these experiences. It offers policy recommendations on how to foster industrial development in Africa in the new global environment characterized by changing international trade rules growing influence of industrial powers from the South the internationalization of production and increasing concerns about climate change. Finally it argues that a new industrial policy is needed to induce structural transformation and engender development in African economies.

The Report focuses on ways of strengthening regional economic integration for Africa’s development. It complements existing institutional analyses of regional integration in Africa with an economic analysis of trade in goods and services migration and investment and surveys recent trends in these flows and assesses the potential for increasing them in ways that will support economic development. The report finds that - when designed and implemented within a broader development strategy regional integration could help improve competitiveness and serve as a launching pad for African economies’ effective participation in the global economy.

The 2007 Report examines domestic resource mobilization for growth and poverty reduction in African countries. It analyses how African countries can increase domestic resources and channel them into productive investments. The Report also examines how African countries can reclaim development “policy space” and give true meaning to “ownership” of development strategies that respond to their own priorities within the framework of a “developmental State”.

Africa’s particular combination of geographical historical and structural features has traditionally attracted Foreign Direct Investment into enclaves of export-oriented primary production with limited linkages to the rest of the economy. This situation has not changed much in recent years and has contributed to undermining a self-sustaining and dynamic investment process. This Report calls for a rethinking of the one-sided emphasis on attracting FDI and its replacement with a more balanced and more strategic approach tailored to African socio-economic conditions and development challenges.

This report reviews the structure and composition of Africa’s trade along with the associated problems of commodity dependence. It also attempts to place in perspective the reasons for Africa’s poor performance and its declining share in world trade. In addition the report appeals for a new international initiative on commodities consonant with the development needs of African countries.

This report reviews Africa’s development in the 1990s and analyses the domestic and external impediments to sustained and rapid growth in Africa. It discusses inter alia policy options for enhancing growth and development in Africa in order to meet the objectives set forth by the international community including that of reducing poverty by half by the year 2015 as contained in the Millennium Declaration. It draws on previous research done in UNCTAD on African development as well as on new research particularly with respect to investment savings and growth and trade performance and terms of trade.