On June 28, the Hague Institute for Global Justice, in partnership with the Brookings Institution and Municipality of the Hague, will host Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Lloyd Axworthy for the second annual Madeleine K. Albright Global Justice Lecture. Abi Williams, president of the Hague Institute, will give welcoming remarks and Ted Piccone, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, will moderate the discussion.

The mood in London today is one of shock and profound uncertainty. It's a momentous day in Europe and, one fears, a portent in the broader debate about the West’s relationship to a globalized and open world.

At the second annual Madeleine K. Albright Lecture on Global Justice, Lloyd Axworthy—a former foreign minister of Canada—unpacked complex and interconnected issues related to the Responsibility to Protect and the role of democratic institutions in assuring peace.

African governments take varying approaches to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 As of this writing, Africa has registered over 39,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 1,600 deaths, with most cases concentrated in the north of the continent as well as in South Africa. African countries have enacted various forms of lockdowns, external and internal border closures,…

Humans are bad at assessing risk even in the best of times. During a pandemic—when the disease is unfamiliar, people are isolated and stressed, and the death toll is rising—our risk perception becomes even more distorted, with fear often overwhelming reason. This is a recipe for disastrous policy mistakes. To be sure, the danger posed…

The release of the IMF’s World Economic Outlook provides an initial country-by-country assessment of what might happen to the world economy in 2020 and 2021. Using the methods described in the World Poverty Clock, we ask what will happen to the number of poor people in the world—those living in households with less than $1.90…

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the ensuing lockdowns, and the near standstill of the global economy have led to massive unemployment in many countries around the world. Workers in the hospitality and travel sectors, as well as freelancers and those in the gig economy, have been particularly hard-hit. Undoubtedly, unemployment is often an economic catastrophe leading…

Last month’s edition of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s biannual Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa, which discusses economic developments and prospects for the region, pays special attention to the financial channels through which COVID-19 has—and will—impact the economic growth of the region. Notably, the authors of the report reduced their GDP growth estimates from…

Women and girls in Africa are among the most vulnerable groups exposed to the negative impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. Although preliminary evidence from China, Italy, and New York shows that men are at higher risk of contraction and death from the disease—more than 58 percent of COVID-19 patients were men, and they had an…

Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan political updates Ethiopia-Eritrea relations continue to thaw, as on Sunday, May 3, Eritrean president Isaias Afwerki, Foreign Minister Osman Saleh, and Presidential Advisor Yemane Ghebreab, visited Ethiopia, where they were received by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. During the two-day diplomatic visit, the leaders discussed bilateral cooperation and regional issues affecting both states,…

It has been 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The consequences of this event for Germany and for Europe to this day take central stage in discussions about the end of the Cold War. Essays on the repressive nature of the regime in East Germany and the wall’s purposeful construction to keep…

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan received a warm welcome at the White House last Wednesday. But this facade of good relations between the two countries is highly deceiving. Indeed, any sense of victory Turkey might claim from the outwardly friendly visit with Donald Trump is an illusion. In reality, the two countries are wide apart…

History is often full of strange ironies. Decades from now, the rise and fall of ISIS will probably be remembered in the same breath as the rise and fall of Kurdish hopes of statehood. That Kurdish aspirations of independence in Syria and Iraq should have suffered the same fate as ISIS is, of course, an irony…

The inaugural Global Refugee Forum (GRF) will take place in Geneva this week to review international commitments to support the ever-growing number of refugees worldwide and the communities that host them. Representatives of states and international agencies, as well as refugees, academics, civil society actors, private sector representatives, and local government officials will all gather.…

Executive Summary The Syrian crisis is approaching its ninth year. The conflict has taken the lives of over 500,000 people and forced over 7 million more to flee the country. Of those displaced abroad, more than 3.6 million have sought refuge in Turkey, which now hosts more refugees than any other country in the world.…

We hosted a Development Seminar on “Unemployment and domestic violence — new evidence from administrative data” with Dr. Sonia Bhalotra, Professor of Economics at University of Essex. Abstract: This paper provides possibly the first causal estimates of how individual job loss among men influences the risk of intimate partner violence (IPV), distinguishing threats from assaults. The authors find…

President Lyndon B. Johnson introduced his “war on poverty” during his State of the Union speech on Jan. 8, 1964, citing the “national disgrace” that deserved a “national response.” Today, many of the poor children of the Johnson era are poor adults with children and grandchildren of their own. Inequity has widened so that people…

While COVID-19 is invisible to the eye, one very visible sign of the epidemic is people wearing face masks in public. After weeks of conflicting government guidelines on wearing masks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended that people wear nonsurgical cloth face coverings when entering public spaces such as supermarkets and public…

Tanzania, Kenya, and UNECA enact environment-positive policies and programs On Saturday, June 1, Tanzania’s ban on plastic bags went into effect. According to The Citizen, the new law targets the “import, export, manufacturing, sale, storage, supply, and use of plastic carrier bags regardless of their thickness” on the Tanzanian mainland. The law also bans the…

South Africa offers bailout for state-owned power utility Eskom On Tuesday, July 23, the South African minister of finance presented a bill to parliament requesting a bailout of more than $4 billion for state-owned power utility Eskom. Eskom supplies about 95 percent of South Africa’s power, but has been unable to generate sufficient revenue to…

This week, the Africa Growth Initiative at Brookings published a new policy brief, “Taxing mobile phone transactions in Africa: Lessons from Kenya.” The brief discusses the limited ability of increased tax rates on mobile money transactions and mobile phone airtime to raise a significant amount of new tax revenue. According to the brief, these taxes…

Tunisia and Mozambique vote: On Sunday, October 13, Tunisians participated in their run-off presidential elections between conservative former law professor Kais Saied and media magnate Nabil Karoui. Saied, known as “Robocop” for his serious presentation, won with 72.7 percent of the vote. Notably, Saied himself does not belong to a party, but is supported by…

African Union summit focuses on “silencing the guns” This week, the African Union (AU) held its 33rd annual Heads of State and Government Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This year’s theme, "Silencing the Guns: Creating Conducive Conditions for Africa's Development,” refers to Aspiration 4 of Agenda 2063, “a peaceful and secure Africa.” Despite the AU’s…

On March 17, GeoPoll released the results of their survey deployed to determine perceptions and understanding of COVID-19 in South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria. South Africa currently has the highest number of diagnosed cases of the virus of any African country, and, while the number of diagnosed cases is currently low in Nigeria and Kenya,…

African governments take varying approaches to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 As of this writing, Africa has registered over 39,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 1,600 deaths, with most cases concentrated in the north of the continent as well as in South Africa. African countries have enacted various forms of lockdowns, external and internal border closures,…

On March 15, 2020, the Kenyan government abruptly closed schools and colleges nationwide in response to COVID-19, disrupting nearly 17 million learners countrywide. The social and economic costs will not be borne evenly, however, with devastating consequences for marginalized learners. This is especially the case for girls in rural, marginalized communities like the Maasai, Samburu,…

The 2020 presidential election and the partisan divide over the coronavirus crisis have highlighted what we have known for some time: American politics is increasingly polarized, our political communication is nasty and brutish, and thoughtful deliberation and compromise feel increasingly out of reach. On the positive side, we don’t seem to like this state of…

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a historic spike in unemployment insurance claims, and there is growing consensus that the economy is headed for a potentially deep and protracted recession. In the past, postsecondary credentials or degrees have helped mitigate the impact of an economic downturn. Of all new jobs created after the Great Recession, 99%…

In the midst of an unprecedented crisis, it can be hard to see more than a few days into the future. It’s as if we were wandering around in a dense (and deadly) fog. Some commentators are predicting that this will change the way we live; one even predicts that it will “change us as…

Public schools in America were established to equip students with the tools to become engaged and informed citizens. How are we doing on this core mission? Last week, the National Center of Education Statistics released results from the 2018 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) civics assessment to provide an answer. The NAEP civics assessment…

For perhaps the first time in recent memory, parents and teachers may be actively encouraging their children to spend more time on their electronic devices. Online learning has moved to the front stage as 90 percent of high-income countries are using it as the primary means of educational continuity amid the COVID-19 pandemic. If March will forever…

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Annual economic growth in Israel of 3.5% over the past decade has largely been the result of an increase in employment rates, while the growth rate in productivity has been very low. The rates of employment cannot continue to grow at this rate in the future due to the expected saturation in employment…

As COVID-19 requires more and more swaths of the country to shelter at home, broadband is more essential than ever. Access to the internet means having the ability to work from home, connecting with friends and family, and ordering food and other essential goods online. For businesses, it allows the possibility of staying open without…

There are two small business crises in the United States. The first—the sudden shock to small businesses induced by COVID-19—is acute and immediate. Our recent analysis indicates that over 50% of small businesses with employees (an astounding 4 million establishments) face immediate or near-term risks due to the pandemic. The second crisis—the structural racial and…

Surging unemployment claims show that our labor market, built for efficiency, can crumble in times of crisis at huge human and economic costs. The pandemic has exposed a weak point in the country’s economy: the precarity of low-wage workers. Many have adapted to unimaginable circumstances, risking their own well-being, implementing public health protocols, and keeping…

Prior to COVID-19, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were gaining traction among local governments and city leaders as a framework to focus local policy on ambitious targets around inclusion, equity, and sustainability. Several cities published reports of their local progress on the SDGs in Voluntary Local Reviews (VLR), echoing the official format used by countries…

In a piece written for this blog four years ago—after the Ebola outbreaks but mostly focused on rising natural disasters—I argued that to deal with global public “bads” such as climate change, natural disasters, diseases, and financial crises, we needed global financing mechanisms. Today, the world faces not just another global public bad, but one…

Like in other parts of the world, the Western Balkans are suffering a heavy blow as the novel coronavirus spreads. Governments are sending people home, and only a few businesses are allowed to operate. What began as a health shock has required a conscious—and necessary—temporary activity freeze to slow the spread of infection, leading to…

To be capable of surveilling, preventing, and managing disease outbreaks, public health systems require trustworthy, community-embedded public health workers who are empowered to undertake their tasks as professionals. The world has not invested in this cadre of health workers, despite the lessons from Ebola. In a new paper, my co-authors and I discuss why, and…

Here’s a striking statistic: Low-income and lower-middle income countries (LICs and LMICs) account for almost half of the global population but they make up only 2 percent of the global death toll attributed to COVID-19. We think this difference is unreal. Views about the severity of the pandemic have evolved a lot since its outbreak…

The release of the IMF’s World Economic Outlook provides an initial country-by-country assessment of what might happen to the world economy in 2020 and 2021. Using the methods described in the World Poverty Clock, we ask what will happen to the number of poor people in the world—those living in households with less than $1.90…

Amid the many plans and projects that have been set awry by the rampage of COVID-19, spare a thought for the world’s census takers. For the small community of demographers and statisticians that staff national statistical offices, 2020—now likely forever associated with coronavirus—was meant to be something else entirely: the peak year of the decennial…

In the futuristic 2002 film “Minority Report,” law enforcement uses a predictive technology that includes artificial intelligence (AI) for risk assessments to arrest possible murderers before they commit crimes. However, a police officer is now one of the accused future murderers and is on the run from the Department of Justice to prove that the…

Abstract Since 1980, an estimated $1.3 trillion has left sub-Saharan Africa in the form of illicit financial flows (per Global Financial Integrity methodology), posing a central challenge to development financing. In this paper, we provide an up-to-date examination of illicit financial flows from Africa from 1980 to 2018, assess the drivers and destinations of illicit…

The January revelations around illicit financial gains by Isabel dos Santos, Africa’s richest woman and daughter of former Angolan president Edoardo dos Santos, have once again brought the topic of illicit financial flows to the forefront of the conversation on domestic resource mobilization in Africa. Unfortunately, illicit flows are not new to the continent: While…

This month, the Africa Growth Initiative at Brookings published a policy brief examining trends in illicit financial flows (IFFs) from Africa between 1980 and 2018, which are estimated to total approximately $1.3 trillion. A serious detriment to financial and economic development on the continent, illicit financial flows are defined as “the illegal movement of money…

Possibly emerging as a result of wildlife trafficking and the consumption of wild animal meat, COVID-19 is influencing crime and illicit economies around the world. Some of the immediate effects are likely to be ephemeral; others will take longer to emerge but are likely to be lasting. How is the COVID-19 outbreak affecting criminal groups,…

Slums provide uniquely challenging conditions for containing the coronavirus and confronting the threat of COVID-19. There may be no ambulances. No hospitals. No tests. No or few police. Only some of the most densely populated places on earth. When COVID-19 reaches the world’s slums, few policy options are available; and those that exist often entail…