The president of Women in Africa (WIA) Initiative, Hafsat Abiola, shares her experiences for International Women’s Day under the theme “Invest in women: Accelerate progress.”

Senegalese leader’s belated disavowal of a third term ambition is a win for the country’s civil society and the region’s prodemocracy coalition.  

Several successive years of being one of the world’s fastest-growing economies have made Côte d'Ivoire a darling of investors bullish about Africa. But the country’s strong economic performance has not been matched by political progress in overcoming the divides that drove the country into civil war twice in the last twenty years. With elections scheduled for 2020, many of the same antagonists that featured in those earlier conflicts are jockeying for position, giving observers and citizens an unwelcome sense of déjà vu.

Welcome to “Women Around the World: This Week”. This week’s post highlights the top news stories of 2019 and was compiled by Rebecca Turkington and Alexandra Bro. 

The World Bank released its annual Global Economic Prospects report for sub-Saharan Africa earlier this month, forecasting a GDP growth rate of 3.4 percent in sub-Saharan Africa for 2019. This is up from 2018 and represents a modest recovery from a downturn that began in 2015.