Charted Thinking
A lot of analysis goes into breaking down economies, sectors and value chains to drive our project development
A selection of our favourite charts shows how we create insights and make decisions:
Uganda has a big Arabica opportunity in the west
Coffee production in Uganda by grade (60 kg bags)
Source: Ugandan Coffee Development Authority (UCDA)
This chart shows the products Malawi is exporting to the world.
Not only are almost all exports basic agricultural products, but most is tobacco.
Malawi, like many other African Countries, has a very low score of economic complexity. This is a measure of the productive capacities of cities, regions, countries linked to their inherent knowledge.
Diversification beyond this narrow set of products will be essential for the country’s social and economic growth.
South Africa is critically under-performing its peers
Development outcomes in mining-intensive countries (HDI and income)
Source: GapMinder, UN, World Bank
Malawi is trapped in cash-crop dependency
Malawi's exports by type,
(% of total), 2017
Source: Atlas of Economic Complexity, Scaled Impact Analysis
Coal's development effect makes it hard to cut
Top 25 countries by the CO2 and coal intensity of their economies, 2017
CO2 intensity of GDP
% of power generation from coal
Source: World Bank, BP Statistical Review of World Energy (2018), Eurostat
Circle size = total CO2 emissions
The development of Asian economies raised millions of people out of poverty. Much of this was driven by low cost coal-fired power generation
The biggest challenge in mitigating climate change is to rapidly convert these still developing economies with high levels of CO2 per dollar of GDP to low carbon economies.
Countries already in transition like Japan and Germany are wrestling with the effects of shutting down nuclear power and compensating with coal, gas or both
South Africa is critically under-performing its peers
Development outcomes in mining-intensive countries
(HDI and income), 1990 - 2015
HDI
Income USD, PPP
Source: GapMinder, UN, World Bank
Comparing countries with mining-intensive economies shows some good development results since 1990
Ghana, Peru and Chile broke out of poor or poorer status, to reach middle income or beyond
South Africa is an outlier to the strong correlation between income growth and improving HDI. To change this it will have to address its high inequality
The non-moving very poor countries are hampered by poor governance
The top half of this chart shows single-origin, premium coffees grown in the east of Uganda
These coffees sell into premium export markets
The bottom dark blue block is unwashed "Drugar" Arabica from the west
With acute quality problems the unwashed coffee sells at major discounts, or not at all
The opportunity is to convert Drugar to washed coffee and capture the quality premium