The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) launched on Wednesday, October 13, 2021 an initiative in favor of African cities. The objective is to get African cities to measure their gross domestic product (GDP) to unlock their potential.

The ECA initiative presented in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, aims to help African cities measure their GDP. The ECA emphasizes that GDP estimates will allow a more precise understanding of the weight and economic performance of cities as well as the design of appropriate measures to unlock their full potential. The results of the pilot initiative show for the first time that between 2015 and 2020, Harare accounted for an average of 38% of Zimbabwe's GDP, while Accra and Yaoundé's contributions to Ghana and Cameroon were 36% and 15 .7% respectively. For the ECA, the figures will further help identify priority policy interventions to attract investors, improve competitiveness and strengthen productive economic sectors in cities. A new regional technical working group has been set up to work on the project. The regional technical working group is composed of experts from various organizations, including UN-Habitat, the African Union, the United Cities and Local Governments of Africa (UCLG-Africa), the Club Sahel de l'Afrique, the West Africa, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the United Nations Investment Fund, the World Resources Institute, the Cities Alliance, the Gauteng City Region Observatory and the Islamic Development Bank.