Instead of fixating on infrastructure, African countries should look to the experience of Latin American countries with similar resource endowments: a greater relative abundance of land than low-cost labor.
This synthesis report offers an examination of national development banks (NDBs) in Africa, drawing from case studies in four countries: Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Rwanda and Tunisia. It discusses their evolution in governance structures and operations, their financial and developmental performance, and the challenges they face within their operating environments.
This report from MEDAM (Mercator Dialogue on Asylum and Migration in Europe) reviews European Union (EU) policy developments-both in response to recent geopolitical conflicts and with respect to the broader reform agenda for the EU asylum system.
Authorities are keen to return or resettle the millions of people who fled homes in Borno state, the epicentre of fighting with Islamist militants in north-eastern Nigeria. But risks abound. The government should slow down its effort, focusing on protecting the displaced from further harm.
This publication provides an insight into the lens through which countries of the Global South view the current period of successive crises, brought about by an ongoing global pandemic and a war in Europe.
The world faces a number of crises that interact with increasing velocity and impact, a situation that is described as a state of “global polycrisis”. A new migration environment is shaped by the continued effects of long-term trends and drivers, increasing economic and demographic imbalances, climate change, growing geopolitical competition and the instrumentalisation of migration as a means of hybrid aggression.
This paper looks at possibilities for scaling up renewable energy deployment in African countries in the 2020s and 2030s – not just as a way to increase energy access, but as a clear and timely opportunity for African economies to benefit from the global green transition.
Since 12 December 2022, Azerbaijani ‘eco-activists’ have blocked the Lachin corridor. They state that the main reason for the blockade is to stop the mining of gold and copper in the area The Lachin corridor connects Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia and is crucial for the transportation of essential goods to ethnic Armenian people residing in the region.
The next decade will be characterized by environmental and societal crises, driven by underlying geopolitical and economic trends. Cost-of-living crisis is ranked as the most severe global risk over the next two years, peaking in the short term. Biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse is viewed as one of the fastest deteriorating global risks over the next decade, and all six environmental risks feature in the top 10 risks over the next 10 years.
This report examines the need to consider conflict sensitivity when planning and carrying out renewable energy projects in energy-scarce areas, such as refugee camps. The report uses a case study from Kenya’s Kakuma Refugee Camp to look at the potential for renewable energy projects to lead to conflict or to exacerbate existing tensions.
Wild animals are important worldwide because of the multiple values they represent for human societies. Different frameworks have been proposed to understand the values of wildlife from economic and noneconomic perspectives.
Agricultural trade poses dilemmas for adaptive water governance as farmers and irrigation systems become integrated into global food value chains and are affected by their ongoing dynamics.
There is growing awareness that both the practice and science of participation in water governance continue to suffer from blind spots with regard to questions of power and equity. This article presents an analytical frame that helps explore how participatory processes initiated by water reforms can better address the needs and interests of marginalized groups.
Latin American countries were hard hit by COVID-19 with rates of excess mortality above the OECD average. The pandemic brought additional stress to health systems already overstretched by a growing burden of chronic diseases, unequal access to health care services, overall under-investment in health and strong budgetary restrictions, and systemic inefficiencies.
This report reviews evidence that overshooting 1.5°C may push the earth over several tipping points, leading to irreversible and severe changes in the climate system.
This policy response highlights how Ukraine’s regional development and decentralisation reforms, adopted after the 2014 Maidan Revolution, have contributed to the resilience of the country’s regions and municipalities following Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine
After nearly eight years of war in Yemen, talks are under way between the Huthi rebels and Saudi Arabia. Yet, by themselves, these discussions cannot bring hostilities to a close. The UN should begin laying the groundwork for negotiations that include all the conflict parties.
Chadians’ growing use of social media could prove a boon for the country’s political transition, but it could also fuel violence offline. With donor backing, authorities, civil society, online platforms and influencers should work to ensure social media remains a space for democratic debate rather than an accelerator of conflict.
Productivity growth has been falling for a decade, hindering improvements in living standards. Low productivity reflects, firstly, poor infrastructure in telecommunications and transport.
This book investigates the impact of the United Nations General Assembly's 2010 resolution that elevated rights to water and sanitation are stand-alone international human rights. A major goal of creating this new human right was to incentivize governments to prioritize and pursue policies to improve access to affordable, potable water to the more than 750 million people worldwide who lacked access, as well as to provide the more than 2.5 billion people with inadequate sanitation.
