In Chapter 1, our authors share reasons for confidence in Africa’s economic recovery and offer strategies for boosting financing to protect and enhance the economic gains of recent decades. Much of Africa’s economic recovery hinges on the world’s ability to contain this virus in the long term—as we saw late last year in the reactive travel bans that punished Africa for the omicron variant already circulating around the globe. Clearly, national economies can only have robust growth if both the global economy and their populations are healthy. For this reason, we dedicate Chapter 2 to strategies for preparing Africa’s health systems to be self-sufficient for tackling both current and future health crises as well as exploring strategies to achieve global health equity. Notably, the world has witnessed remarkable leadership under African women when navigating these crises—at a time when recent gains in women and girl’s education, health, and livelihoods have been reversed. Africa’s women and girls continue to flex their intellectual and metaphorical muscles across a variety of arenas—in politics, in offices, in the home, in schools, in laboratories, in hospitals, and on the global stage, to name just a few. Thus, in a first-ever decision, this year, we dedicate a full chapter, Chapter 3, to strategies for further empowering African women and girls. Africa has already shown its ability to lead when it comes to tackling the global climate change crisis through shared efforts like the Common Africa Position. It bears repeating that, despite contributing least to the problem, Africa is experiencing the worst effects— not only in increased natural disasters, but also in cascading impacts like migration and decelerated economic growth. Thus, in Chapter 4, our authors show that, through regional solidarity as demonstrated at the recent global climate negotiations at the U.N. Climate Change Summit; successful local and national responses to climate mitigation and adaptation; and increased global commitment to climate finance, this challenge does not have to be insurmountable. In Chapter 5, our authors approach the reality and practicability of technological tools, including cryptocurrencies, improved remittance systems, digital diplomacy, and data governance, for long-term socioeconomic gains. We close this year’s edition with an exploration of Africa’s partnerships. The pandemic exposed holes in the fabric of global collaboration and the vulnerability of Africa to global headwinds. Even before the pandemic, though, African countries were looking to foster more balanced relationships with other parts of the world that understand the region’s challenges and might share their lessons, resources, and political capital for equal economic advancement. Thus, in Chapter 6, our authors consider Africa’s relationships with emerging partners, such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Gulf states, Russia, and others, and examine how those relationships might lead to prosperous futures for all parties.
