The African Economic Outlook (AEO) 2016 presents the current state of economic and social development in Africa and projects the outlook for the coming two years. The AEO is a product of collaborative work by three international partners: the African Development Bank, the OECD Development Centre and the United Nations Development Programme.
The AEO 2016 shows that the continent is performing well in regard to economic, social and governance issues and has encouraging prospects for the near future. With its special theme on sustainable cities and structural transformation, this edition looks closely at Africa’s distinctive pathways towards urbanisation and at how this is increasingly shifting economic resources towards more productive activities.
The five chapters in Part I cover economic and social aspects of the continent. Part II’s three chapters concentrate solely on the theme of sustainable cities and structural transformation, building on analysis from the African Economic Outlook 2015: Regional Development and Spatial Inclusion. Country notes on each of Africa’s 54 countries constitute Part III; their short version is produced here. For the first time, the statistical annex includes a table on gender, comparing indicators from the three partner organisations.