Insights

The Human Development Index (HDI) is a composite measure that captures a country's average achievement in three basic dimensions of human well-being: health, education, and standard of living. It combines life expectancy at birth (for health), education levels (using mean years of schooling for adults and expected years of schooling for children), and per-capita income (usually GNI per capita) into a single index.

Some countries change with a bang—through elections, upheavals or sudden crises. Morocco is changing more discreetly, through arithmetic. The country’s latest demographic portrait, published in December 2025 by the Haut-Commissariat au Plan (HCP) and drawn from the 2024 General Population and Housing Census (RGPH 2024), reads less like a statistical annex and more like a political fact: Morocco is entering the age of longevity.

On paper, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is a game-changer: a single market of 54 countries, 1.3 billion people and over $3.4 trillion in combined GDP. It officially launched trading in January 2021 amid great fanfare. Early evidence shows a modest uptick in commerce among African nations, yet intra-African trade remains under one-fifth of the continent’s total trade – about 18% as of 2022.

After a quarter-century of haggling, the European Union and Mercosur bloc (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay) have finally sealed a free-trade agreement. The deal creates one of the world’s largest free-trade areas, liberalising over 90% of goods exchanged between Europe and South America. It promises to slash tariffs on everything from German machinery to Brazilian beef. In Brussels and Brasília, officials tout it as a geopolitical win – a signal of openness in an era of creeping protectionism. But as Europe cosies up to Latin America, Africa is watching closely. For African economies, the Mercosur–EU pact portends both threats and opportunities in their own vital trade ties with Europe.