Growth in the region is expected to slow sharply to 2.2% in 2020 under the effects of the current health emergency and then rebound to 6.2% in 2021. Excluding Asia's high-income newly industrialized economies, growth will drop from 5.7% to 2.4% this year before recovering to 6.7% next year. Headline inflation accelerated in 2019 as food prices edged up but remained low by historical standards. Inflation will climb further to 3.2% in 2020, but declining food prices in the latter half of the year will set the stage for easing inflation in 2021. Downside risks to the outlook are severe, most notably from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In these difficult times, when challenges to growth abound, innovation is critical to inclusive and environmentally sustainable growth. While some economies in developing Asia are near or at the global innovation frontier, many others lag behind. This issue of the Asian Development Outlook includes a Special Topic: The Impact of the Coronavirus Outbreak-An Update.

This is the true story about the future that few visionaries have the knowledge necessary to put together. In order to drive the development of technology and sustainability forward there will be a need for considerable investment and collective action. The need to drive large-scale development and transformation activity is usually overlooked when experts in narrow fields project present trends into the future. The foundation of our future has been laid, or maybe not, by past decisions and activities, or lack thereof, by politicians and their voters. The enemy has already been identified and many of us know that is it us, but few ofour leaders have a picture of the path forward that needs to be taken in order to create the future that many people already see as inevitable. We try to contribute on the basis of different pictures of how the future might be created, but large-scale changes cannot be achieved through small-scale activities. It took 400,000 Americans and almost ten years to send three men to the moon in 1969. The following facts may be noted: the transformation to electric mobility is still in its infancy; less than one per cent of cars are electric and the growth is very slow in most countries. Artificial intelligence is also at an early stage of development and the technologies necessary in order to make Industry 4.0 a reality are still too expensive to be applied on a large scale and by most companies. The same is true for the principles of the circular economy. So far mostly low-hanging fruit have been picked and the principles have not been developed to a point where they can be universally applied. In order to create the future that many already see as inevitable there is a need for substantial investment and even larger transformation programmes. If existing generations want to experience it, instead of something much worse, we need to get our act together and approach transformation in a systematic manner. This book presents a well-founded argument about the remedies of contemporary societal challenges, and offers a much needed, sobered-uplook at the complex endeavors that lie ahead. Larsson's book disentangles intricate concepts connected to technology, business, industry and society, and does it free from the jargon and romanticizing we often encounter in everyday conversation. - Professor Thomas Kalling at Lund University School of Economics & Management.

Africa is a continent with boundless potential — it has the natural resources, the population, and the landmass to become a major player on the global stage. Why then, is the gap between Africa and the rest of the world increasing?

While the continent has seen improvements in terms of key indicators of human wellbeing like infant mortality and life expectancy, Africa still suffers from massive poverty, weak economic growth, de-industrialisation, an underdeveloped agricultural sector and poor regional integration, among others. What needs to be done to unleash Africa’s potential and ignite a growth revolution?

In this book, Jakkie Cilliers examines where the continent is at and where it will be in 2040 if it continues on the current path.