With 20 percent of the global population and vast untapped natural resources, not forgetting its human capital, it is time Africa had its rightful seat at the global table, the United Nations Under Secretary and Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Claver Gatete, has called.
A group of 15 smallholder farmers in Kenya petitioned the country’s High Court, seeking to compel the government to review sections of a law that bans the sharing and exchange of uncertified and unregistered seeds.
At the bar that Sandra manages in Panama City's central financial district, the variety offered on the menu has shrunk due to delays in ship traffic through the Panama Canal, one of the world's major shipping routes.
Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions in international trade and investment agreements – long abused by opportunists with means – are slowly being rejected by cautious governments.
Landlocked developing countries need greater support from the international community so that they are no longer left behind when it comes to progressing with the SDGs, says the UN High Representative of the Least Developed Countries.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s week-long tour across four African countries was aimed at strengthening the US-Africa relationship—a relationship, according to some commentators, already waning as China and Russia are increasing their influence.
In the tranquil village of Kotiang, perched on the shores of Lake Victoria in Kenya's lakeside region, Yvonne Atieno, a dedicated mother in her early thirties, tends to her fish pond under the relentless equatorial sun. Her young daughter eagerly joins her mother in this nurturing endeavor. Yvonne, a certified accountant by profession, reflects on how her decision to embrace regenerative farming has not only enriched her life but also imparted invaluable life lessons.
Dr. Zeinab Al-Momany, a prominent social entrepreneur, sheds light on the journey of empowering women farmers in Jordan and the Arab world, where women often work long hours for low pay and lack labour recognition.
At high cost and with dubious efficiency, public-private partnerships (PPPs) have increased private profits at the public expense. PPPs have proved costly in financing public projects.
World Bank aid encourages governments to enable illicit financial outflows to offshore tax havens by reducing capital controls, thus draining precious foreign exchange and government resources.
As hunger and food insecurity deepen, Africa is confronting an unprecedented food crisis. Estimates show that nearly 282 million people on the continent, or 20 percent of the population, are undernourished. Numerous challenges across the African continent threaten the race to achieve food security; research and innovative strategies are urgently needed to transform current systems as they are inadequate to address the food crisis.
The World Bank insists commercial finance is necessary for achieving economic recovery and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but does little to ensure profit-hungry commercial finance serves the public interest.
By failing to address pressing challenges within their purview, the second-ever Bretton Woods institutions’ (BWIs) annual meetings on the African continent, in Marrakech in October 2023, set the developing world even further back.
"We have always lived a very quiet life here, but everything has changed since the construction of the multi-purpose port began a few years ago," said Miriam Arce, a neighborhood leader in this municipality 80 kilometers north of the Peruvian capital, where the new port is projected to become the epicenter of trade between China and South American countries.
In recent decades, failure to sustain economic progress has been blamed on a supposed middle-income country (MIC) trap. Such blaming obscures as much as it supposedly explains.
US President Joe Biden’s Indo-Pacific Framework for Prosperity (
IPEF) is the economic arm of his administration’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, aimed at countering China’s influence in the region.
Public-private partnerships (PPPs) for infrastructure and service provision are both costly and risky. Worse, PPPs typically fail to ensure universal, let alone fair access to public amenities.
Governments the world over are worried about investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) rules. These allow foreign investors to sue them for billions over new laws or policies reducing their profits.
Smallholder agricultural enterprises in Africa face a lot of challenges getting loans from financial institutions like banks due to the stringent requirements they can hardly fulfil. Investor confidence is usually lacking, given the risks involved in this sector of the economy.
Diego has just enrolled to study journalism at a university in the Venezuelan capital and, with 2,000 dollars that his family members managed to gather, has bought his first car, a small 2007 Ford that can take him to class from his home in the neighboring Caribbean port city of La Guaira.
They do not have a pension nor financial support from families or relatives, but they have themselves. Now they have become collectors of plastic waste, which they turn into products as they battle for survival - earning money from the growing plastic pollution in Zimbabwe.
In addition to being a majestic river - the second longest in South America after the Amazon - the Paraná River is the waterway through which a large part of the area's primary goods are exported. Today, its economic importance has sparked an unexpected diplomatic conflict between Argentina and the countries with which it shares the basin.