Global Africa?

What Next for the Bretton Woods Twins?

The IMF Should Take Over Libra

ATHENS – The Libra Association is fragmenting. Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Stripe, Mercado Pago, and eBay have abandoned the Facebook-led corporate...

Trump’s Perfidious America

TEL AVIV – US President Donald Trump’s abrupt decision to withdraw American troops from Syria, clearing the way for a Turkish offensive against...

Time to Bite the Bullet in Syria

CANBERRA – Recent events in Syria have naturally raised two questions: Who lost the country? And where might the international community go from...

Climate Leadership from Developing Countries

LIBREVILLE – When Gabon ratified the 2015 Paris climate agreement, its real work was just beginning. The main challenge was to find ways to...

Trump’s Middle East Meltdown

Ending Short-Termism by Keeping Score

GENEVA – As finance ministers gather in Washington, DC, for the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s annual meetings, they will face no...

How Fact-Checking Can Win the Fight Against Misinformation

JOHANNESBURG – According to fact-checkers at the Washington Post, US President Donald Trump has made more than 13,000 false or misleading claims...

The End of Sri Lankan Democracy?

COLOMBO – One of Asia’s oldest democracies may be in jeopardy. Sri Lanka’s presidential election next month, is expected to bring to power...

The High Price of Trump’s Great Betrayal

NEW YORK – There are several reasons why US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw American forces from northern Syria, and leave the...

Improving Nutrition Can Save Lives – and the Planet

TORONTO – When world leaders, activists, campaigners, and chief executives gathered last month at the United Nations in New York City to discuss...

How China Loses Friends and Alienates People

CLAREMONT – The Chinese folk saying “lift a rock only to drop it on one’s own feet,” or its English equivalent – “to shoot oneself in the...

India’s Modi Slowdown

NEW DELHI – Until recently, Indians had gotten used to taking economic growth for granted. After a decade of annual growth averaging over 9%,...

Will Trump Be Removed from Office?

WASHINGTON, DC – For the first time, reasonable people in the United States have begun to speculate that President Donald Trump could be convicted...

A Window of Opportunity for African Fossil Fuels

WINDSOR, ONTARIO – In August, a plaque was installed where Iceland’s once-iconic Okjökull glacier stood, before climate change turned it into a...

The Necessity of Climate Economics

The Survival of Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe

WARSAW – Is populism in Central and Eastern Europe finally losing its momentum? In Poland, opposition parties won the Senate, and the ruling Law...

There Is No Security Without Sustainability

Can a West African Currency Union Work?

YAOUNDÉ – The 15 countries of the Economic Community of West African States have agreed to adopt, as of next year, a new shared currency, the...

Integrating the Arab World for Sustainable Growth

AMMAN – The Arab world has a massive natural-resource endowment and a total GDP of nearly $2.5 trillion. The region is highly diverse in its...

Child Marriage Is Stunting Development

FEZ – At last month’s United Nations summit on the Sustainable Development Goals, child marriage did not get top billing. Yet ending this cruel...

Anti-Globalization Bias and Public Policy

NEW YORK – Opponents of globalization constantly point to the uneven impact of open trade. Although trade liberalization can make the overall...

Unsustainable Australia

NEW YORK – Few countries have such a fundamental interest in addressing climate change as Australia. Yet Australia’s current conservative...

Sustained by Sustainable Coffee

Tokyo’s Sustainable Games

TOKYO – In the run-up to the Olympic Games, many host cities often become vast and dusty building sites. New construction is typically aimed at...

How China Can Reach its Centennial Goal

SHANGHAI – Two years ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping declared that by the time the People’s Republic celebrates its centenary in 2049, it should...

How to Afford the SDGs

PARIS – In September 2015, world leaders committed to achieving 17 Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. Back then, the United Nations Conference...

Can Synchronized Stagnation Be Stopped?

ITHACA – The global economic slowdown is turning into a synchronized stagnation, with some major economies growing only weakly and others barely...

The Coming AI Spring

LONDON – Artificial intelligence (AI) is all around us, generating excitement about how it could increase prosperity and transform our lives in...

How to Stem Ukraine’s Corruption

CAMBRIDGE – In the euphoric moment immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union, few would have guessed that Ukraine – an...

Quantitative Greening

BERKELEY – In 2015, just before the signing of the Paris climate accord, Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England (BoE), gave an historic...

Financing the Green Transition

PARIS – Four years after world leaders signed the Paris climate agreement and adopted the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda with its 17 Sustainable...

Will Libra Be Stillborn?

CHICAGO – Plans for Facebook’s proposed “stablecoin,” Libra, appear to be unraveling with the withdrawal of PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, Stripe,...