As Malawi votes AGAIN tomorrow since multi-democracy in 1994 - it still remains one of the poorest countries in Africa. This is albeit absence of any conflict. The common trend always appears for electives to focus on being re-elected in the next elections, whose motive could bring short term gains that often trade-off with longer term sustainable benefits. One could argue that, uncertainty of re-election of elected presidents is what causes mis-prioritization of development efforts, poor governance, and corruption.

Indeed democracy has its benefits, but does it outweigh its costs for African countries? - specifically asking..."what could have happened if there was no democracy, and presidents were secure about their presidency"?

If yes, then how do we mitigate poor governance that comes from insecurity of re-election?

Very insightful LIPEDE Omolola Mary,Nigeria,GPSPD . My question would be analogous to the chicken and egg dilemma, in relation to the mindset and development phenomena - would you not argue that development comes first and then mindset follows?

I agree with SYAHUKA Hilda, Uganda, DOA on the recruitment. When AI is involved, it becomes an issue of recruiting who has more information about the recruitment process than who actually has the skills. This has dire consequences on inequality - because information access is correlated with poverty levels for sure.

This is insightful. i am just interested in finding out why you think is the reason that certain groups are marginalized in this transformation process.

Another debate could be whether compliance drives development, or whether development will drive the complience indeed. While we want the citizens to hold their end of the bargain, do they feel satisfied with the usage of their tax?

can imputed estimates be relied on?

Do you refer to national level or organisational level crises?

Thanks for sharing

Interesting ideas

Similarly, without focusing directly on SDG 6, it is evidenced that increased resource mobilization, through improved governance, contributes to SDG 6. Government can therefore still achieve this while also leveraging on already existing tools

This indeed timely - while it will improve resilience, integrating with ICT also provides some economic multiplier effects towards SDG overall. Congrats!

Well...while the intentions are there - with existing hard infrastructure - the biggest obstacles are the soft infrastructure, the institutions. Institutions are non-permitting when it comes to innovations to improve effectiveness and efficiency. Theoretically, we can discuss on their inability to reward innovators (in the form of patents etc)- while in addition in reality, gate-keeping is one of the obstacles of innovation. For example, individuals who own transport facilities (trucks etc) would be against the idea of adopting rail transportation to protect their purses.

Secondly, the sunk-cost fallacy of the individuals deter them from accepting innovative initiatives. The mentality of being comfortable with what they have learnt over time and the fear of being a novice in new initiatives deters individuals to push for the latter.

There is a lot of talk on how (possibly) Africa could benefit from the reduced (or eliminated) tariffs on African Imports.

However, do you think Africa is ready to benefit from this? and to what extent? Considering quality requirements conditions.

Is this another missed opportunity or an information shock that could induce structural transformation( labour shifting from low value-added to higher value added sectors)?

I would suggest that digitization and automation would play a vital role in this - this would surely enhance efficiency. Of-course while that is so, it would also derail on harnessing the demographic dividend due to jobs that would be deemed redundant (laid off) due to automation. At the end of the day, it is an issue of cost-benefit assessments, on what we are willing to let go to achieve the set goals.

1. Is there anyone who has worked in climate change related areas or has done/is doing climate change related research? Would be great to leverage on each others experience!

2. On another note, what are the sentiments of the governments (in your countries)when it comes to investing in climate change adaptation strategies - given the share of Africa's contribution to climate change?

BANENGAI KOYAMA Torcia Chanelle,Central African Republic,MFGD Would you clarify on the taxes that these governments are imposing on diaspora contributions? I see it difficult given the capacity of tax administration systems in African countries. See my thinking below:

I agree with you on the significant roles of remittances - but due to the informality of the channels that the diaspora use in remitting funds to left-behind households, i believe it would be difficult for governments to succeed at this. In addition, i believe the more they attempt to tax these formal channels, the more the informal channels will present themselves - which would lead to reduced formal tracking of remittances by government albeit people still increasing the volumes. At the macro-level, this problem in the external sector will present spill-over problems to the real, financial, and public sectors. In Malawi for example, this presents data accuracy issues by central banks (research loses validation), presents an informal black market for forex (people create forex markets on social media), and limits forex availability (forex does not go through banks) (this ofcourse will have many other consequences for import dependent countries).

I agree with your observation and everyone else's. While we focus on the macro level analyses, my input would be to suggest at also looking at the micro level analyses - to improve mitigation. By doing this, this shoulders the problem of corruption in Africa- where regardless of climate finance that could be made available, the vulnerable rarely benefit from this (ofcourse while bearing the burden of debt repayment arising from climate finance). In my research, i focus on the micro-level, local factors - factors within the reach of the person living under $1.90 a day- that could mitigate the impact of climate shocks toward household level welfare. for example, interested in looking at how incidence and intensity of social networks (relationships within a community) in a rural economy would cushion the impacts of climate shocks on Migration (whether Migration is or is not a problem, is a different issue, for now :) )