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…

After nine years of political conflict in Syria, more than 5.5 million Syrians are now displaced as refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, with more than 3.6 million refugees in Turkey alone. It is unlikely that many of these refugees will be able to return home or resettle in Europe, Canada, or the United States.…

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…

This week in Class Notes: Reforming college admissions to boost representation of low and middle-income students could substantially reduce income segregation between institutions and increase intergenerational mobility. The Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend increased fertility and reduced the spacing between births, particularly for females age 20-44. Federal judges are more likely to hire female law clerks after serving on a panel…

Over the last few decades, family formation patterns have altered significantly in the U.S., with long-run rises in non-marital births, cohabitation, and single parenthood – although in recent years many of these trends have leveled out.   Importantly, there are increasing class gaps here. Marriage rates have diverged by education level (a good proxy for both social class and permanent income). People with at least a BA are now more likely to get married and stay married compared…

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…

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 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…

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…

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…

In 1996, Harris Cooper of Duke University and his colleagues first reported on the effects of what came to be known as summer slide, or summer slump. Over the summer months, when children are not in school, those from under-resourced communities tend to lose roughly 30 percent of the gains they made in math during…

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…

During the COVID-19 pandemic, only 44% of school districts are both providing instruction online and monitoring students’ attendance and progress. Kids in these districts have a good chance of staying on grade-level during the coronavirus shutdown. Kids in the majority of districts, which are either providing no instruction or offering instruction but not tracking progress,…

COVID-19 has upended, along with everything else, the balance sheets of the nation’s elementary and secondary schools. As soon as school buildings closed, districts faced new costs associated with distance learning, ranging from physically distributing instructional packets and up to three meals a day, to supplying instructional programming for television and distributing Chromebooks and internet…

The coronavirus pandemic has thrown America into a coast-to-coast lockdown, spurring ubiquitous economic impacts. Data on smartphone movement indicate that virtually all regions of the nation are practicing some degree of social distancing, resulting in less foot traffic and sales for businesses. Meanwhile, last week’s release of unemployment insurance claims confirms that every state is seeing a significant…

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…

The COVID-19 crisis is testing America’s resilience. The rapidly accelerating economic fallout makes concrete the risks for a national economy built on the success of just a few key economic centers. When the nation turns to the work of recovery, our goal must be to expand the number and breadth of healthy communities, jump-starting a…

Executive Summary While America spent the past decade upgrading its bank-based magnetic striped cards with chips, China experienced a retail payment revolution. Leapfrogging the card-based system, two new payment systems have come to dominate person-to-person, retail, and many business transactions. China’s new system is built on digital wallets, QR codes (two-dimensional bar codes), and runs…

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…

E-commerce—defined broadly as the sale of goods and services online—is emerging as a key pillar in the global fight against COVID-19. Online grocery shopping and telemedicine, for instance, are helping to avoid in-person contact and reduce the risk of new infections. Video chats, movie streaming, and online education make physical distancing measures more bearable. In…

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…

The more things change, the more they stay the same. For the nearly 860 million people living without electricity, the technologies and business options for delivering access have grown a lot. Yet a wide gap remains between the cost of providing last-mile electricity and what poorer folks are able to pay. It’s the same challenge that every…

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…

As homicides levels in Mexico are rising and U.S. pressure is mounting, the administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (known widely as AMLO) is turning further away from several core precepts of the security policy with which it assumed office. The idea of giving amnesty to some criminals as a way to reduce violence that…