As a public development bank, AFD must gauge the issues at stake and monitor the risks associated with its financing. To do so, it relies on a team of around ten economists dedicated to analyzing the macroeconomic and financial situation of its various countries of operation. This monitoring feeds into country assessments that inform the Group's operational and strategic decisions in each of its regions of operation. This activity is part of one of AFD's priority research areas, dedicated to macroeconomic diagnostics and forecasting.

Country assessments make it possible to analyze the development processes under way in the countries where AFD operates, to characterize their growth trajectories, and to identify the economic, social, political, and financial vulnerabilities associated with these trajectories. This enables AFD Group to properly gauge the issues at stake and monitor the risks associated with each of its investments.

The scope covered focuses on developing countries, particularly in Africa, for which macroeconomic analyses are scarce or infrequent. The analyses produced are therefore often highly complementary to existing coverage of global economic developments, which tends to focus more on advanced economies and major emerging markets.

The work of AFD's country-risk economists draws on close, long-term monitoring and an in-depth understanding of local contexts. Short-term developments, often highlighted in the news, are systematically examined in light of the structural trends of each economy and its regional context, in order to bring out the macroeconomic issues specific to each country while assessing risks against comparable trajectories over time and across countries.

Country-risk economists place the study of socio-political vulnerabilities, growth models, public debt sustainability, external balances, and financial system soundness at the heart of their diagnostics, and pay particular attention to countries' exposure to climate and natural hazard risks.

The MacroDev collection

Some of the work carried out by country-risk economists, whether country assessments or cross-cutting analyses, leads to publications in the MacroDev collection of the Éditions Agence française de développement. In particular, the special “Semestrial Panorama” issues shed light on the key cyclical and structural issues facing emerging and developing countries.

See all MacroDev publications

The DecoDev webinars

The publication of each MacroDev “Semestrial Panorama” is accompanied by a DecoDev webinar: a session decoding the major macroeconomic trends, followed by three country focus segments.

Discover the DecoDev webinars