CAD has been assigned by UNDP to draft the 2015 Human Development Report for Africa, which focuses on Women’s Economic Empowerment and Gender Equality. This report is expected to become an effective tool in advancing gender equality and empower women as agents of change and leaders towards a more inclusive, sustainable and resilient world.

This is the second report drafted for the African continent, after a first one published in 2012 (AfHDR 2012), which tackled the problem of food security and explored why dehumanizing hunger remains pervasive in the region, despite abundant agricultural resources, a favorable growing climate, and rapid economic growth rates.

As a follow up to AfHDR 2012, the African Human Development Report 2015 (AfHDR 2015) intends to provide intellectually independent and empirically grounded analysis of development issues, trends, progress and policies in order to help advance sustainable human development and gender equality. It complements findings from recent reports that emphasize the need to address gender equality as a development objective in its own right but also because gender equality is seen as ‘smart economics’, enhancing productivity and improving other development outcomes in the present and future.

The series of global, regional and national Human Development Reports have provided policy makers with alternative thinking and evidence-based analysis that puts people in the center of development. As such, the human development framework has been a major player in shifting the policy debate and advocating for a broader concept of development.