The 2015 installment of the Africa Progress Panel Report entitled “People, Power and Planet - Seizing Africa’s energy and climate opportunities” focuses its attention on climate change and the energy challenges faced by Africa today.

Launched at the World Economic Forum on Africa in Cape Town, South Africa, the publication highlights the need for Africa to accelerate development and adapt to global warming, whilst also addressing the region’s urgent energy crisis. According to the research, two in three Africans have no access to electricity at all, 600,000 deaths a year are being caused by household air pollution, and on current trends, it would take Africa until 2080 to achieve universal electricity access.

To counteract this, the Panel stresses that there is an opportunity for Africa to bypass fossil fuels and move straight to low-carbon sources of power if aid is combined with higher taxes, an elimination of subsidies and a crackdown on illicit transfers to tax havens.

In a context of fragile economic recovery and possible future debt crises, UNCTAD has published The Roadmap and Guide for Sovereign Debt Workouts which gives recommendations to improve the coherence, fairness and efficiency of current sovereign debt restructuring processes. Aiming principally to guide countries through steps they can take before and during debt restructuring, this document hinges around five principles for sovereign debt workouts: legitimacy, impartiality, transparency, good faith and sustainability. An analysis of this Roadmap by Eurodad can be accessed here.