The Economic Report on Africa 2025 (ERA 2025) examines AfCFTA’s implementation, highlighting achievements, challenges, and its potential to reshape Africa’s economic landscape. The report underscores AfCFTA’s role in addressing key challenges such as energy access, food security, industrialization, and digital trade. By fostering intra-African trade, the agreement can reduce commodity dependence, boost manufacturing, and strengthen Africa’s position in global value chains.

The report highlights a big gap in achieving goals set for 2030, with only 6 years remaining. The report reveals that only 17% of the SDG targets are on track, over 33% lagging behind and the rest at minimal progress. To achieve the goals, massive investment is needed alongside scaled up action globally, for a more resilient and prosperous world. On a brighter note, some positive highlights include reduction in child mortality, prevention of HIV infection, and access to energy and broadband.

This report sheds light on the complex challenges that Africa faces including domestic, regional, and international risks like economic inequalities, climate change, and conflicts. On the front of economic growth, the continent experienced slowed growth to 2.5% in 2023 but is expected to rebound to 4% in 2024. Food insecurity is rampant with an estimated 160 million Africans that suffer from acute food insecurity, with numbers expected to rise in 2024.

The report highlights trends in popular satisfaction and support for democracy, noting both the resilience and challenges faced by democratic governance in Africa. As part of the challenges and findings that affect democracy in Africa include: Issues such as corruption, military rule, and declining satisfaction with democracy are discussed, alongside the need for stronger local government integrity and official accountability.

The report highlight significant challenges that Africa faces which include global conflicts, climate change, post-COVID-19 recovery, and a cost-of-living crisis, leading to increased poverty and hunger. Many African economies are burdened with high debt, inflation, and limited access to development and climate financing. However, Africa is making positive progress on only 3 of the 51 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targets, regressing on 8, and stagnating on the rest.

This report highlights several human rights challenges faced in 2023 which included human rights suppression, wartime atrocities, and selective government outrage caused by conflicts and crises. The renewed hostilities in Israel, Sudan, Ukraine, Myanmar, and Ethiopia caused immense suffering. The same year also had climate and economic issues i.e. it was the hottest year on record that led to wildfires, droughts, and storms, exacerbating economic inequality.

The powerful notion of human security has evolved, incorporating principles of justice while elevating nature and technology’s roles in safeguarding and enriching human life. Still, its original insight from over three decades ago holds true: secure nations require a sense of security, well-being, and belonging among their citizens too. This report emphasizes the importance of human security, which includes socioeconomic opportunities, environmental sustainability, and protection against violence.

East and Horn of Africa’s peace and security outlook still remains bleak. This is attributed to complex geopolitical and socioeconomic dynamics across the aforementioned regions.

This report does shed light on intersecting complexities in the global governance architecture. It offers a comprehensive roadmap for course correction in a divided world embattled by violent conflict, fragility, hyper-nationalism, refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), pandemics, climate change-fueled crises, unchecked proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI), and growing tools of cyber-warfare.

Being third in series, the 2023 report authored by African Peer Review Mechanism on behalf of the African Governance Architecture (AGA) presents an analysis of the influences, causes, drivers and triggers of Unconstitutional Change of Government (UCG) in Africa. The analysis is identified by organs of the African Union (AU) and verified by an elaborate process of country targeted reviews.