Content: Contributors

  • When Small Pays Big

    Sub-Saharan Africa is a rare bright spot in a still-sluggish world economy, with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projecting a six percent output growth this year. A decade of expansion has been driven by peace, better economic governance, investment and high commodity prices. But, make no mistake, it has not just been about resources. Some […]

  • EPRDF: Denial or Delusion on Private Sector Engine

    I was fortunate enough to be invited to the public private consultative forum (PPCF) last Wednesday, while in Addis Abeba for vacation.  As a strong supporter of the EPRDF and a major fan of the Party’s achievements, I was excited to hear from Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn first hand. Indeed, the premier’s command of his […]

  • Time for Bold Approach to Agriculture

    Heads of State and Government of the African Union (AU) are meeting in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, this week, to reinforce their commitment to moving Africa towards integration and prosperity through the transformation of agriculture. Meeting on the theme: “Transforming Africa’s agriculture for shared prosperity and improved livelihoods through harnessing opportunities for inclusive growth and sustainable […]

  • Finance’s First Law

    How problematic low real interest rates are depends on the reason for their decline. The prevailing view is that a downward trend largely reflects a fall in equilibrium or “natural” interest rates, driven by changes in saving and investment fundamentals. In other words, a higher propensity to save in emerging economies, together with investors’ growing […]

  • Keeping Agricultural Revolution Mobile

    Why is it easier for farmers to get mobile phones in some of Africa’s most remote areas than high-quality seeds or technical advice? As the founder of a global telecoms company based in Africa, I know that setting up a business can be hard work. But the right combination of incentives, investment and regulation can […]

  • Illusive Rise

    We hear a lot these days about “Africa Rising” – and with good reason. The region is growing at a record rate, with six of the world’s 10 fastest growing economies in the last decade located in Sub-Saharan Africa. Asides from a relatively small number of states where conflict is affecting development, growth is good […]

  • Real Betrayal

    It has been a couple of years since disputes around real estate developments became the order of the day. It sounds like a universal truth that real estate clients have to be “betrayed” by the developers. By nature, real estate development requires a huge volume of finance to make it work. The situation in this […]

  • The Price of Unity

    A functionalist view of society tells us that there is no independent self, sufficient on its own – whether in the physical world or in systems created by humans. There only exists a world of interdependence. We live in within a network of functional systems. That is why human beings organised in socio-cultural systems engage […]

  • Unextractable Carbon

    Fossil fuel companies have lobbied hard – and often successfully – against effective climate policies. But a recent report by an environmental research group revealed that at least 29 major companies, including five major oil producers, are basing their internal planning on the assumption that such policies – specifically, a government-mandated carbon price – will […]

  • Technopolity

    It would be an understatement to say that our world is undergoing a rapid and far-reaching change. The global economy, the geopolitical landscape, the environment and technology are subject to constantly shifting conditions that reinforce and transform one another in a web of complex interactions. In such an unpredictable and interconnected setting, effective leadership must […]

  • Formalities of Informal Trade

    Informal trade is difficult to measure, because even if everyone has seen it, there is no evidence of it in official statistics.  Thus, estimates are often difficult to arrive at and quite costly, as they require the collection of data from several sources, including customs data, data from border surveys, local economic and social statistics […]

  • A Sanitation Puzzle

    A puzzle: sanitation is one of the most productive investments a government can make.  There is now rigorous empirical evidence that improved sanitation systems reduce the incidence of diarrhea among children. Diarrhea, in turn, harms children’s nutritional status .  And inadequate nutrition affects children’s cognitive skills, lifetime health and earnings.  In short, the benefits of […]

  • Gross Domestic Wellbeing

    During a 2008 discussion of the global financial crisis at the London School of Economics (LSE), United Kingdom, Queen Elizabeth II famously floored a room full of financial heavyweights by asking, “Why did no one see it coming?” That question has been haunting economists ever since, as the recognition has slowly taken hold that, in […]

  • Merits of Crises

    We should take note of what we are seeing as the beginning of the end of the neoliberal approach to development. The process of discrediting that development model began in the aftermath of the East Asian financial crisis of 1997/98. At the time, there appeared to be nothing new in the nature of the East […]

  • Engendered Agriculture

    Africa’s GDP is now growing faster than any other continent’s. When many people think about the engines driving that growth, they imagine commodities like oil, gold and cocoa, or perhaps industries like banking and telecommunications. I think of women farmers. Certainly, agriculture is crucial to Africa’s future. Farmers make up 70pc of Africa’s workforce. They […]

  • Defective Sympathy

    Online charity giving is taking some by storm. It allows users to read personal tales of medical woe in emerging markets and contribute up to the total amount needed to pay for a particular patient’s treatment. Many might say, “how nice!” But I say, “hold the applause”. The problem is not that charity is a […]

  • Development Loopholes

    The history of economic development tells us that there is no one-size-fits-all model to accomplish the transformation from an agricultural economy to an industrialised one. For some East Asian countries, colonisation played an important role in the developmental learning process. The same process in Africa, however, created economic dependency, leading countries to be exporters of […]

  • Humanitarian Catch Up

    While huge numbers of people in Asia and Africa continue to rise out of poverty, those who remain are increasingly in fragile states, exposed to war and crisis. In 2005, just 20pc of the global poor were in conflict-affected and fragile states. Today, that figure is 50pc and set to rise to more than 80pc […]

  • A Case for Selected GMOs

    The deficiency of Vitamin A causes blindness in about 250,000 to 500,000 pre-school children every year, about half of whom die within 12 months. It also increases susceptibility to diseases, such as measles – still a significant cause of death in young children, although one that is declining as a result of vaccination. In some […]

  • Goldilocks Economy

    Economists sometimes describe a country as having a “Goldilocks” economy, because it has achieved moderate, sustainable growth rates that are “neither too hot nor too cold, but just right”. They might also seek Goldilocks’s views on export-promotion policy. Export promotion might appear to be a virtuous exercise, regardless of whom it supports. Some government agencies, […]

  • Opposing the Obvious

    The promulgation of the anti-terrorism law has been the subject of political rows. Most of the Ethiopian opposition political parties are opposed to this statute. This is despite the fact that the nature of terrorism is in some ways more similar to war than crime. The costs of terrorism are even more severe than the […]

  • Ecological Bailout

    Our planet is warming dangerously. And, as the 2013 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) makes clear, our carbon-dioxide emissions over the past half-century are extremely likely to be at fault. A more robust approach to global warming is needed if we are to avoid catastrophe. Unlike the recent financial crisis, there […]

  • Moment of Inflection

    Ethiopia and Eritrea ceased business relations upon the commencement of the border war in 1998. While a small amount of barter trade still exists, it is fair to say that trade relations between the two countries are all but non-existent – this is very much to the detriment of the private sectors in both countries […]

  • The Growth Remedy

    It is not often that one can confidently claim that a single remedy could make billions of people around the world significantly better off; do so in a durable and mutually supportive manner; and thus improve the well-being of both current and future generations. Yet, that is the case today. The remedy I have in […]

  • Where Economic Efficiency Misses Robustness

    This year marks the hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of World War I (WWI) – and, arguably, the worst year in human history. A century later, is the world any safer? Not only did WWI leave almost 40 million people dead; it can be viewed as a precursor to World War II. After all, hadGermany’s […]