35 this area (WeAreSocial & Hootsuite, 2017). Access to modern road and railway transport infrastructure is a key enabler of sustainable and equitable growth. Poor-quality roads have severely impacted the cost of travel and transport, as 80–90% of passenger and freight traffic travels by road in Africa. As a result of poor infrastructure, transport costs were found to account for up to 20% of the value of imports for least developed and land-locked economies. (AfDB, 2014). According to the UN Special Advisor on Africa, approximately 60% of the African population lack access to modern road and railway infrastructure, isolating communities and hindering access to markets, healthcare, education, and jobs (Exim Bank India, 2018). Africa has an average of 204 km of roads per 1,000 km2 of land area, whereas the global average is 944 km/ 1,000 km2. Only 25% of roads are paved and the quality of roads tends to be poor. Lack of adequate transport infrastructure also forms an impediment to intra-continental trade and integration. This is reflected in data on intra-regional exports, which accounted for ~18% of total exports in 2016 (a small increase from ~12% in 1996), compared with ~70% in Europe and ~60% in Asia (Exim Bank India, 2018). Finally, inadequate transport infrastructure can impede the growth of important markets for green technology, such as the market for off-grid renewables, by increasing transport costs and hampering regular maintenance and repairs. Africa’s rail network is 82,000 km long with ~84% of tracks operational (AfDB, 2015). However, improvement and expansion are required, as many existing networks were constructed during colonial times. Six African countries in northern and southern Africa, namely Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Namibia, South Africa, and Eswatini, are currently estimated to have a better railway network than the global average. Women’s empowerment Women play a central role in African households, particularly in poorer communities. There, the majority of household tasks, including collecting firewood and water, cooking, and taking care of children, fall on the shoulders of girls and women, who spend many hours daily on these activities. The empowerment of women, central to the ‘leave no one behind’ principle of the UN SDGs, can be achieved partly by freeing up more of women’s and girls’ time, which will have positive impacts on innovation, agricultural productivity, economic growth, and overall human development of the continent. Women’s empowerment is a complex, abstract, and comprehensive concept that is difficult to quantify (Ewerling et al, 2017). Empowerment is defined by the World Bank as the “process of enhancing an individual’s or group’s capacity to make purposive choices and to transform those choices into desired actions and outcomes” (World Bank, 2006). Women’s empowerment can be achieved through processes such as the realisation of gender equality in areas such as representation, wage, power and autonomy, and by helping women envisage a life in which they are able and entitled to make critical decisions at home and for society. Studies on SubSaharan Africa and Asia have shown that gender equality has direct positive impacts on children’s survival, health, and development (Ewerling et al, 2017). The current status of gender equality in Africa varies from country to country. Economic progress represented by growth of GDP or GDP per capita is not always correlated with more gender equality. The World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Index ranks seven African countries, namely Rwanda, Namibia, South Africa, Burundi, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique, in the top 50 nations with the smallest gender gap, with Rwanda and Namibia securing top-ten spots (WEF, 2018). Namibia and Rwanda are the highest performers of all countries in the upper-middleincome and low-income categories, respectively. The index consists of 14 indicators in four categories. In Africa, the top-ranked countries score highly in the categories of economic participation and opportunity (e.g. ratio of men and women in the labour force and wage equality) and political empowerment (e.g. representation in parliament). In Sub-Saharan Africa, the large differences between countries are mainly driven by varying and generally low scores in the categories of educational attainment and health and survival (except for Namibia, which is ranked number one in the world in the health category). Overall, Sub-Saharan Africa ranks higher than South Asia and MENA in the Gender Gap Index and just below the global average. The IMF (2016) has shown that in Africa, gender equality in education, such as in secondary school enrolment, increased steadily from 1980-1984 before plateauing in 2010-2014. Epidemics are known to disproportionately impact women’s health, livelihoods and safety, and COVID-19 has been no exception. Women are highly represented in the informal sector in Africa and are therefore at high risk of losing their livelihoods. Furthermore, women typically care for children and sick family members in their households, which puts them at greater risk of infection themselves. In addition, many women have needed to find ways to complement household incomes as jobs have disappeared or breadwinners have fallen ill. In the absence of social protection measures, the dual burden of income generation and domestic responsibilities tends to fall solely on women. Climate change —core to the African Development Bank’s strategy
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