The first U.N. food aid since Sudan’s conflict began two years ago has reached the centre of the capital Khartoum, the United Nations said on Wednesday. Relief efforts are also scaling up in the western Darfur region amid large-scale displacement. Distributions of 70 metric tonnes of World Food Programme (WFP) supplies for nearly 8,000 people in Khartoum’s Burri neighbourhood are set to begin on Thursday, U.N. deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters. These mark the first distributions in the downtown area since the conflict erupted. Aid distributions have also started in the Alazhari neighbourhood in south Khartoum, targeting 20,000 people in an area the U.N. considers at high risk of famine, Haq said. Separately, the U.N. is dispatching more humanitarian supplies to Tawila in North Darfur state, where Haq said more than 300,000 people have sought safety after fleeing recent attacks in the Zamzam displacement camp. (Sudan Tribune)

The 2025 Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group have been an opportunity for Africa to come face to face with the realities of a turbulent shift in the global context, with heightened policy uncertainties and macroeconomic vulnerabilities, according to Hanan Morsy, Economic Commission for Africa’s Deputy Executive Secretary and Chief Economist.

Speaking at a high-level roundtable co-hosted by OMFIF and Crown Agents, bringing together central banks, international organizations, and private sector leaders, focused on how emerging and frontier economies can address these challenges, Morsy said, “Strengthening financial resilience in today’s volatile environment demands bold, coordinated solutions across central banks, multilaterals, and the private sector.” (Press release)

“With the Fourth Financing for Development Conference (FfD4) in Seville, Spain, just two months away, Africa has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rewrite the rules of global finance, so they serve as a bridge to Africa’s sustainable development.” Claver Gatete, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), made this statement in his opening remarks at a side event during the Fourth Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) for FfD4 on 29 April 2025.

Co-organised by the ECA and the African Union Commission (AUC), the event aimed to review Africa’s priorities for the FfD4 scheduled for 30 June to 3 July 2025, building on outcomes from regional consultations, and to identify key actions to ensure the FfD4 agenda aligns with Africa’s development needs.

Stressing the need to strengthen domestic resource mobilization and tackling illicit financial flows, Gatete said that as long as US$89 billion escapes African economies each year, true resilience will remain out of reach. (Press release)

An inverted yield curve shows that long-term U.S. Treasury debt interest rates are less than short-term interest rates. When the yield curve is inverted, yields decrease the farther out the maturity date is. Sometimes referred to as a negative yield curve, the inverted curve has proven to be a reliable indicator of a recession.