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About this event
The Publishing Office of the French Development Agency (AFD) is pleased to invite you to a webinar on the occasion of the release of "Inequalities in Sub-Saharan Africa: Multidimensional Perspectives and Future Challenges", an upcoming title in the Africa Development Forum series jointly published by AFD and the World Bank Group.
This new report examines the deep-rooted and complex inequalities impacting income, education, healthcare, and climate resilience across the African continent. In parallel, the report addresses the need for transformative policies—ranging from progressive taxation to equitable access to credit and job opportunities—and highlights the importance of both redistributive and foundational reforms to tackle inequality at its core. Emphasizing the crucial role of African-led research, the report advocates for strengthening local research capacities as a cornerstone of sustainable development, supported by institutions like the World Bank and AFD. A summary of this publication is also available in Swahili & in Xhosa
Agenda :
Moderator: Etienne Charrière, AFD Deputy Head of Publications
In 2025, we celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Africa Development Forum series. With a focus on issues of significant relevance to Sub-Saharan Africa’s social and economic development, titles in the series aim to both to record the state of the art on a specific topic and to contribute to ongoing local, regional, and global policy debates. They are designed to provide practitioners, scholars, and students with the most up-to-date research results while highlighting the promise, challenges, and opportunities that exist on the continent.
About our panelists:
Thomas Melonio is Chief Economist of AFD and also has been Executive Director of Innovation, Strategy and Research since September 2018. This division aims to find solutions to the complex challenges of sustainable development through research, knowledge sharing, and innovation. To better support AFD partner countries along their trajectory toward more sustainable development, it produces economic and social research, evaluates AFD-funded projects, trains developing country management personnel, finances innovative projects related to the environment (via the French Global Environment Facility—FGEF), and helps share innovation across AFD’s other divisions.
Andrew Dabalen is the World Bank’s Africa Region Chief Economist since July 1, 2022. The Chief Economist is responsible for providing guidance on strategic priorities and the technical quality of economic analysis in the region, as well as for developing major regional economic studies, among other roles. He has held various positions including Senior Economist in the World Bank’s Europe and Central Asia Region, Lead Economist and Practice Manager for Poverty and Equity in Africa and most recently, Practice Manager for Poverty and Equity in the South Asia Region. His research and scholarly publications focused on poverty and social impact analysis, inequality of opportunity, program evaluation, risk and vulnerability, labor markets, and conflict and welfare outcomes. He has co-authored regional reports on equality of opportunity for children in Africa, vulnerability and resilience in the Sahel, and poverty in a rising Africa.
Vimal Ranchhod is a Professor in the School of Economics at the University of Cape Town (UCT), the Deputy Director of the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, and the head of the South African node of the African Centre of Excellence for Inequality Research (ACEIR). He serves on the council of the Economics Society of South Africa and is a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa. He obtained his PhD in Economics from the University of Michigan, and has taught at Wits, Michigan, and Yale. At UCT he teaches graduate courses on inequality, and development. His research focuses on labour economics, education, poverty and inequality, and discrimination.
Fati N'Zi-Hassane
Fati N'Zi-Hassane has been Oxfam's Africa Director since October 2022. Previously at the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD) which she joined in 2016 as Chief of Staff to the Executive Secretary, Dr. Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, she subsequently held the position of Head of the Skills and Employment Programme which she supervised the creation within the same institution, before being promoted to Head of the Human Development and Institutions Division. In this last role with AUDA-NEPAD, she oversaw the Health component to the Agency’s response to the COVID-19 crises, the creation of a Gender Programme, and numerous projects aligned to Nutrition, Education and Employment continental strategic priorities.
Anda David is Senior Economist at AFD in charge of research programs on inequality, poverty and international migration. Her current projects focus on the impact of emigration on countries of origin (labor market, women’s labor), inequalities, social cohesion and aid effectiveness. She also analyzes inequalities and migration patterns, and coordinates the scientific aspects of the European Research Facility on Inequalities. Prior to joining AFD's research division in 2015, Anda David worked on these issues through regular collaborations with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the World Bank.
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The Agence Française de Développement Group funds, supports and accelerates the transition to a fairer and more sustainable world. Our teams carry out more than 4,000 projects in France’s overseas territories and another 115 countries. In this way, we contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals.
