A joint post by PhD alumni Racky Balde and Elvis Avenyo. … The COVID-19 pandemic and its associated counter-measures continue to shed light on the social and economic challenges facing African countries. Economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa countries is expected to decline, putting pressure on already limited fiscal space and resources in the region. The worst affected will be people working in the informal economy, which in most African countries represents the biggest part of the econom...

Her Majesty Queen Mathilde of the Belgians paid an in-person visit to UN House in Brussels, the headquarters of several agencies, funds, and programmes of the United Nations in the Belgian capital, as well as a virtual visit to the UN in Liberia, on 23 September 2021. During her meeting with representatives from UN organisations in Brussels, Her Majesty discussed the main priorities of the UN, and in particular the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It was Her Majesty’s ...

After struggling for 39 years to develop a fertile ground for democratic governance, Nigeria had its turning point in May 1999 when it became the world’s fourth largest democracy. This came after 16 years of brutal military rule. Despite complaints of fraud by political opposition in each election held since 1999, local and international election observers have regarded each of Nigeria’s general elections as relatively free and fair. On the economic front, Nigeria is now the largest economy in A...

Knowledge 2 Knowledge Entrepreneurship, Côte d’Ivoire, is a one-year capacity-building training programme to help knowledge institutes in Côte d’Ivoire to foster an entrepreneurial mindset and skills in their students. The project hopes to achieve a lasting positive and tangible impact on job creation in a country and world region faced with high levels of youth unemployment. While Africa is the only region where the youth population will continue to grow, over one in five youth are not in emplo...

Bruno Martorano, United Nations University; Francesco Iacoella, United Nations University; Laura Metzger, Harvard Kennedy School, and Marco Sanfilippo, Università di Torino Chinese investment in Africa has helped spark economic growth and improve social outcomes across the continent. Yet Chinese projects often seem to go hand in hand with civil protests. We wanted to find out whether these were isolated incidents or signalled broader discontent among the population. In new research, we show that...

The World Bank launched its Development Impact blog on 1 April 2011, and has since published exactly 1500 posts. To celebrate turning 10, the editors of the blog decided to replace its meteor logo with something that better captures the aim of development research: i.e. to inform on the range of potential outcomes and choices in policy design and development processes. Responding to a call for artistic ideas, our Bolivian-Italian PhD fellow Mariajose Silva-Vargas sent in the image above, which w...

The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on the global economy, with world output contracting at 3.5% in 2020, and no recovery likely before the fourth quarter of 2021. Similar to other developing regions, sub-Saharan Africa recorded a 2.6% decline, following strong growth of 3.2% in 2019. Unfortunately, this comes at a time when the region has been experiencing a surprising and very welcome manufacturing renaissance. Historically, industrialisation has been associated with rapid technological im...

Women researchers have been at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19, with female scientists across the globe playing pivotal roles, from advancing knowledge on the virus, to developing vaccines, treating patients and assessing the pandemic’s devastating economic and social impact. However, the health crisis has laid bare disparities in the scientific system. Girls are significantly under-represented in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects at school, and women occ...

Inspired by the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement, this series is the product of an international team from UNU-MERIT that first came together in the summer of 2020. It aims to provide a substantial and accessible platform in the fight against racism, articulated by young African thought-leaders who put a premium on robust debate and other non-violent approaches. #blacklivesmatter #whiteforblack … One issue barely registers in the Black Lives Matter movement, and that is the career challenges ...

This is an extraordinary moment in world history. While it is too early to assess the global impact of the Black Lives Matter movement, emerging evidence indicates that it has made significant progress. The first significant impact of the protests has been the toppling of Confederate and slavery-related statues around the world. In England, protesters toppled the statue of Edward Colston, a prominent slave trader. In Belgium, protesters set fire to a statue of King Leopold II. In the USA, statue...