The Africa Progress Panel has just released their annual report indicating that Africa is making “unsteady but remarkable progress”. According to AllAfrica.com, some key highlights include:

Progress in the areas of governance and education are mixed, with more democracy and access to education on the one hand, but coups d’etat and low school enrolment still prevalent. Corruption is costing the continent $150 billion a year;

Health financing has improved and several countries appear to have significantly reduced their AIDS prevalence rate, and there is growing number of patients receiving antiretroviral treatment. But indicators of health in Africa remain the lowest in the world;

While Africa still has the largest number of armed conflicts of any region and about one fifth of the continent’s population lives in conflict zones, there has been tangible progress towards strengthening mechanisms for reducing conflict;

Although international food prices have fallen, the nutritional needs of the poor are still receiving inadequate attention and food crises persist in 20 African countries.

You can read more about the APP Report here and here. We’ll have deeper insight and analysis soon.

-Chris Scott