Development & Aid

Russia’s First Female Central Bank Governor in a Challenging Job

By Olga Stankova
Within a few short months after taking up her post as governor of the Central Bank of Russia in 2013, Elvira Nabiullina faced a growing economic crisis brought on by plunging oil prices, geopolitical tensions, and sanctions.

After the Rain: The Lasting Effects of Storms in the Caribbean

By Luis Felipe López-Calva
Sustainability is constitutive of the concept of development. Just as economist Amartya Sen has argued that there is no point in discussing the relationship between development and democracy, because democracy is constitutive of the concept of development, there is no point of trying to disentangle sustainability from the notion of development itself.

Against All Odds, Indigenous Villages Generate Their Own Energy in Guatemala

By Edgardo Ayala
In the stifling heat, Diego Matom takes the bread trays out of the oven and carefully places them on wooden shelves, happy that his business has prospered since his village in northwest Guatemala began to generate its own electricity.

Why Climate Action Plans are not Good Enough to Deliver a Low-Carbon Future in Cities

By Karishma Asarpota
Though climate policies aim to reduce GHG emissions, they miss out on emphasizing the importance of urban planning policies Cities that have ratified the Paris Agreement and pledged to reduce carbon emissions are adopting climate action plans aimed at reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Privatization Promotes Collusion and Corruption

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
At the risk of reiterating what should be obvious, the question of private or public ownership is distinct from the issue of competition or market forces. Despite the misleading claim that privatization promotes competition, it is competition policy, not privatization, that promotes competition.

Economic Empowerment of Women Good for All

By Kingsley Ighobor
Government staffer Souhayata Haidara enjoys talking about her life in a patriarchal society. Her career is a triumph of patience and perseverance, she tells Africa Renewal with a smile and a wink.

Global Energy Consumption is Up — So Are Emissions

By Sunita Narain
Our acceptance of climate change doesn’t keep pace with our energy consumption reduction. However, the latest International Energy Agency’s (IEA’S) Global Energy and CO2 Status Report for 2018 has some good news.

Women in Ethiopia Still Struggle Despite Leadership in Government

By Bethlehem Mengistu
Following 2018 elections in Ethiopia, a record-breaking number of women now hold leadership positions in the country's government. But women still struggle to rise up the ranks in other sectors.

UN’s Empty Promises to World’s Indigenous Peoples

By Tupac Enrique Acosta
The United Nations, as in so many other areas, gives lip service in support of Indigenous issues while lacking the political will and enforcement power over individual member states to comply with the protection of fundamental human rights for the Original Nations of Indigenous Peoples of the world.

Empowering Girls Through Sport

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
For too long, women and girls have been excluded from the playing field—literally. But now, many are paving the way in the fight against gender inequality through sports.

Egypt’s Food Challenge: a Good Effort but Not Enough

By Maged Srour
“Unfortunately the overall nutritional panorama of Egypt does not look well,” says Dr. Sara Diana Garduno Diaz, an expert concentrating on nutrition and biology at the American University of the Middle East. Diaz’s research focuses on dietary patterns and ethnic-associated risk factors for metabolic syndrome.

Trump’s Veto Will Trigger More US Arms to Kill Civilians in Yemen

By Thalif Deen
President Donald Trump’s decision to veto a bi-partisan Congressional resolution to end US military involvement in a devastating Saudi-led four-year conflict in Yemen-- is expected to escalate the ongoing war in the trouble-plagued region.

CORRECTED VERSION: World Bank Dispossessing Rural Poor

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Anis Chowdhury
The World Bank’s Enabling the Business of Agriculture (EBA) project, launched in 2013, has sought agricultural reforms favouring the corporate sector. EBA was initially established to support the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, initiated by the G8 to promote private agricultural development in Africa.

Climbing the Coconut Value Chain in the Pacific

By Josephine Latu-Sanft
In the Pacific, coconut is king. Known as the ‘tree of life’, locals make use of every part of the tree to survive – the fruit for eating, husks for fuelling fires, fronds for making multiuse baskets, and the trunk for building houses.

Lessons From China: Fostering Agricultural Growth and Poverty Reduction

By Daud Khan
As China has moved from a poor isolated country to a major player in the world economic and political sphere, developing countries need to learn how to engage.  

Pakistan’s Battle Against Climate Change

By Mushahid Hussain*
Pakistan, which has been listed as the 7th most vulnerable country affected by climate change, is now seriously tackling the vagaries of weather, both at the official as well as non-official level. Pursuant to an initiative launched by the Pakistan Parliament’s Upper House, the Senate, which specially entrusted a sub-Committee of the Standing Committee on Climate Change to focus on “Green and Clean” Islamabad, media, civil society and students have taken up the cudgels on combating climate change.

U.S. Needs to Shift to More Sustainable Agriculture—As Do All Countries

By James Jeffrey
Water supply has long been a key issue in California. Today it is no less critical, especially given the years of drought that California is experiencing, lending additional impetus to assessing the impact of agriculture on water.

Global Governance and Information

By Ambassador Walther Lichem
The past seventy years since the end of the second world war have been marked by profound changes in our international system. Relations between states have become more horizontally structured interactions with a rising significance of the common good articulated and pursued by newly-created international programmes and organisations.

Birds of Passage: An Instant Classic

By Jan Lundius
The Academy Awards, i.e. The Oscars, may occasionly award a worthy movie as Best Picture, though it is far from sure they select films with a unique artistic vision, enduring cultural influence and/or innovative qualities. Take for example the plain family drama Kramer vs. Kramer, which in 1979 won Best Picture and Best Director, while Francis Ford Coppola´s by now classical epic Apocalypse Now was awarded for best sound.

Civil Society Under Attack in Name of Counterterrorism

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
Counterterrorism measures are not only affecting extremist groups, but are also impacting a crucial sector for peace and security in the world: civil society.

When Youth Take on The Fight to Defend Rights

By A. D. McKenzie
Abraham M. Keita says he was nine years old when a girl of thirteen was sexually assaulted and strangled in his home community in Liberia.
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