On Jan. 14, 2017, the Obama White House hosted 30 incoming staff members of the Trump team for a role-playing scenario. A readout of the event said, “The exercise provided a high-level perspective on a series of challenges that the next administration may face and introduced the key authorities, policies, capabilities, and structures that are…

In Charts of the Week this week, housing affordability and some new COVID-19 related research. How to lower costs of apartment building to make them more affordable to build In the first piece in a series on how improved design and construction decisions can lower the cost of building multifamily housing, Hannah Hoyt and Jenny…

On April 2, as Nigeria’s megacity Lagos and its capital Abuja locked down to control the spread of the coronavirus, the country’s military announced a massive operation — joining forces with neighboring Chad and Niger — against the terrorist group Boko Haram and its offshoot, the Islamic State’s West Africa Province. This spring offensive was…

For the past three years the Republican Party leadership have stood by the president through thick and thin. Previous harsh critics and opponents in the race for the Republican nomination like Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator Ted Cruz fell in line, declining to say anything negative about the president even while, at times, taking action…

Everything old is new again for Iran and Saudi Arabia. In recent days, a series of diplomatic skirmishes between Tehran and Riyadh has intensified the long simmering tensions between the two heavyweights of the Persian Gulf. The bitter clash over regional influence and energy policy parallels with striking similarity a protracted brawl between the two rivals three decades earlier, which generated a destructive spiral of violence and economic hardship for both countries.

For Europe, it has been a rough year, or perhaps more accurately a rough decade. However, we must not lose sight of the key structural advantages—and the important policy successes—that have brought Europe where it is today. For example, Europe’s recent progress in energy policy has been significant—good not only for economic and energy resilience, but also for NATO's collective handling of the revanchist Russia threat.

In a critique of a recent Brookings paper by Mark Muro and Devashree Saha, Lisa Wood argues that net energy metering is in fact a tariff that creates a subsidy for NEM customers and a cost-shift onto non-NEM customers.

Over the last few years, the image of natural gas has deteriorated within the United States, particularly within the environmental community. In a new policy brief, Tim Boersma analyzes public sentiment surrounding natural gas production and the important role natural gas can play globally as a stepping stone towards a low-carbon economy.

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.

Post-Brexit, Tom Wright gives advice to the EU, the next British prime minister, the Remain campaign, Scotland, Ireland, and the United States.

Fear of political contagion has emerged as an incredibly powerful and important idea that is poised to shape Europe’s future. Unfortunately, it has been repeated as mantra and has not been subjected to careful scrutiny.

Crisis seems to be the byword for Brazil today: political crisis, economic crisis, corruption crisis. Yet despite the steady drum beat of grim news, Brazil is more than likely to resume its upward trajectory within a few years.

Roberta Cohen and Francis M. Deng write on sovereignty and responsibility as the building block for R2P in the "The Oxford Handbook of the Responsibility to Protect."

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.

On July 14, the Brookings Project on International Order and Strategy (IOS) hosted an event with Daniel Drezner, Caroline Atkinson, and David Wessel on the future of the global economic order given rising populism and discontent with globalization.

“[Turkey’s] democracy was always a problematic one, interrupted by military coups, but also when there were no military coups the democracy itself had its own challenges with respect to the quality of human rights, the spectrum of democracy as well – the military always hung over this democracy like Damocles’ sword.” – Kemal Kirişci “Turkey […]

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 COVID-19 pandemic has brought economic and social activity around the world to a near standstill. As a result, carbon dioxide emissions have declined sharply, and the skies above some large cities are clean and clear for the first time in decades. But “degrowth” is not a sustainable strategy for averting environmental disaster. Humanity should protect…

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…

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…

The Syrian crisis is approaching its ninth year. In that span, the conflict has taken the lives of over five hundred thousand people and forced over seven million more to flee the country. Of those displaced, more than 3.6 million have sought refuge in Turkey, which now hosts more refugees than any other country in the world.…

It’s embarrassing to admit, since I work in a Center on Children and Families, but I had never really thought about the word “relative” until I read the new Atlantic essay from David Brooks, “The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake.” In everyday language, relatives are just the people you are related to. But what does…

We know that to achieve success in most social policy areas, such as homelessness, school graduation, stable housing, happier aging, or better community health, we need a high degree of cross-sector and cross-program collaboration and budgeting. But that is perceived as being lacking in government at all levels, due to siloed agencies and programs, and…

Under normal circumstances, children spend 80 percent of their waking time outside the classroom. The COVID-19 pandemic has quite abruptly turned that 80 percent into 100 percent. Across the U.S., schools and child care centers have been mandated to close, and children of all ages are now home full time. This leaves many families, especially…

On Feb. 25, 2020, Rashawn Ray, a David M. Rubenstein Fellow at The Brookings Institution, testified before Congress's Joint Economic Committee in a hearing titled “Improving Family Stability for the Wellbeing of American Children.” Ray used his testimony to brief lawmakers on the recent trends in family formation and stability, the best ways to interpret…

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…

Abstract Taxation on mobile phone-based transactions and on airtime has been introduced in Kenya and is spreading to other African countries. Some countries in sub-Saharan Africa view mobile phones as a booming subsector easy to tax due to the increasing turnover of transactions and the formal nature of such transactions by both formal and informal…

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 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…

Today, the Brown Center on Education Policy is releasing a new report on one of the unexplored effects of the opioid crisis: the link between the opioid epidemic and the educational outcomes of children in hard-hit areas. Written by Rajeev Darolia and John Tyler, the report suggests a need to be aware of the potentially…

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…

More than a quarter of the world’s people are in quarantine or lockdown in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19). Tens of millions are required to stay at home, with many of them laid off or on unpaid leave. Given the highly contagious nature of the virus and the absence of a vaccination or cure, the…

On February 20, the World Bank and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), which funds development of epidemic vaccines, cohosted a global consultation on funding the development and manufacturing of COVID-19 vaccines. We wrote a working paper to guide the consultation, which we coauthored with World Bank and CEPI colleagues. The consultation led to…

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…