Pardee Center launches report with UNDP: “Exploring Alternative Futures of Development: Economic and Human Development Trends to 2040"
On March 21, the Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Guinea-Bissau office hosted an event in Guinea-Bissau to launch the first report of two reports on development in Guinea-Bissau. This first report looks at economic and human development in Guinea-Bissau: “Exploring Alternative Futures of Development: Economic and Human Development Trends to 2040.”
The event included a discussion on the result of the report with more than 30 professionals from ministries and NGOs in Guinea-Bissau. It was followed by a scenario workshop organized by the Pardee Center with nine groups distributed across topics such as agriculture, tourism, fisheries, infrastructure, and economic structure, to work on core questions on the current state and the future of these sectors.
The Pardee Center also hosted a five-day training on using the International Futures (IFs) model for analysis in Guinea-Bissau. The training included nearly forty government officials, NGOs, and academic researchers from Guinea-Bissau. The initial days were focused on report findings, scenario analysis, and introduction to the IFs model. The training also included IFs tutorials on particular topics of interest, such as economics and government finance, agriculture, fisheries, infrastructure, tourism, and education.
The research was led by Pardee Center staff and research aides, namely, Willem Verhagen, Caio C. Pereira, David K. Bohl, Mark E. Meziere, Mohammod T. Irfan, and Jonathan D. Moyer. Guinea-Bissau’s development challenges along with state fragility have resulted in low economic growth historically, with COVID-19 exacerbating economic decline today. The report explores the economic and human development outlook in Guinea-Bissau to 2040, with a baseline scenario and two additional economic growth scenarios to capture uncertainty on the political stability and the countries size.
The report provides an integral overview of the national development trends and prospects. It finds that economic growth will improve the human condition but broader development progress in education, governance, and infrastructure is needed to accelerate that progress. The aim of the report is to prioritize decisions on the multi-dimensional development challenges and understand the interconnectedness between development goals and the acceleration of human development. The full report is available for download.
This report is part of a series of reports on Guinea-Bissau, in which the second one will focus on alternative trajectories of development on green growth, environmental sustainability, and sustainable economic and human development.