Search
AI-powered search, human-powered content.
scroll to top arrow or icon

Focus on Africa: hunger, energy, climate - and the path to growth

Sub-Saharan Africa was on the brink of economic recovery last year. Now, the World Bank expects its growth to slow in 2023. With global inflation on the rise, rising food and fuel costs “actually put lives at risk in a way few other shocks can," says International Monetary Fund (IMF) senior economist Andrew Tiffin.

And sub-Saharan Africa is particularly vulnerable: 123 million people there are currently food-insecure, while the region accounts for 6% of the global energy demand. With climate change exponentially leading to those numbers rising, Tiffin says: “Any globally viable discussion has to take into account Africa’s concerns and needs. Because without that, there is simply no solution.”


The IMF’s latest analysis and growth projections for sub-Saharan Africa were released in a new report, available here: https://imf.org/AfricaREO-Oct22

Tiffin spoke in a Global Stage interview with Shari Friedman, Eurasia Group's managing director for Climate and Sustainability, at the World Bank/IMF fall meetings in Washington, DC.

More from Global Stage

Can we use AI to secure the world's digital future?

How do we ensure AI is safe, available to everyone, and enhancing productivity? It’s a big topic at this year’s UN General Assembly. That’s why GZERO’s Global Stage livestream brought together leading experts at the heart of the action for “Live from the United Nations: Securing our Digital Future,” an event produced in partnership between the Complex Risk Analytics Fund, or CRAF’d, and GZERO Media’s Global Stage series, sponsored by Microsoft.

Is the Europe-US rift leaving us all vulnerable?

As the tense and politically charged 2025 Munich Security Conference draws to a close, GZERO’s Global Stage series presents a conversation about strained relationships between the US and Europe, Ukraine's path ahead, and rising threats in cyberspace.

Can we rebuild the Internet for democracy?

At the 2026 Munich Security Conference, entrepreneur and Project Liberty founder Frank McCourt makes the case that the internet, and the AI systems rapidly reshaping it, must be redesigned to serve people, not platforms.

Ian Bremmer: The US–China AI space has “Zero Trust”

China was largely absent from the core conversations at the 2026 Munich Security Conference. That, says Ian Bremmer, is telling.

Why countries are picking their own alliances

At the 62nd Munich Security Conference, Parag Khanna, founder and CEO of AlphaGeo, says globalization isn't dead, it's evolving. Speaking with GZERO’s Tony Maciulis, he explains that countries are forming flexible alliances that expand and shrink based on their interests. “You’d rather be in the tent...if it suits your interest than not in it,” Khanna notes, highlighting how the US, Europe, and Asia are adapting to shifting global priorities.

What does “sovereign cloud” really mean?

Sovereignty has become one of the most powerful, and least defined, words in tech policy. At the 2026 Munich Security Conference, SAP global head of government affairs, Wolfgang Dierker, explains why governments and enterprise customers are demanding more control over their data, cloud infrastructure, and AI systems amid rising geopolitical uncertainty.