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Blog post
A delicate balance: How to harness regional integration and industrial policy for economic transformation in Africa
Two powerful drivers of economic transformation, industrial policy and regional integration, can be friends or foes. Africa’s economic prospects will be profoundly shaped by their relationship. One of the key factors shaping industrialisation in Africa this decade (and beyond) will be the relationship between regional integration and industrial policy. Both are...
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Blog post
Collective action for environmental health: Evidence from sanitation in rural India
Access to and sustained use of improved household latrines have long been both a challenge as well as a policy priority in India, particularly in rural areas. Recognising the importance of social mechanisms that underlie household sanitation choices, this study utilises experimental games conducted in rural Bihar and Odisha, to examine how social factors, such as gender,...
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Blog post
မြန်မာနိုင်ငံရှိ စိုက်ပျိုးရေးတန်ဖိုးကွင်းဆက်အတွက် ငွေကြေးဖြည့်ဆည်းပံ့ပိုးမှု တိုးတက် ကောင်းမွန်စေရေး မူဝါဒများ
ငွေရေးကြေးရေးဝန်ဆောင်မှုများသည် စိုက်ပျိုးရေးကဏ္ဍရှိ ကုန်ထုတ်စွမ်းအားနှင့် ဖွံ့ဖြိုးတိုး တက်မှုတို့ကို တွန်းအားပေးနိုင်သော...
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Blog post
Agricultural value chain finance can help drive Myanmar’s agricultural growth
Surrounded by some of the largest consumer markets in the world, at the nexus of important trade routes, and with its own growing consumer markets, Myanmar has tremendous potential as an agricultural producer. Yet one persistent obstacle is the agricultural sector’s lack of access to financial services, which can drive productivity and growth. Myanmar’s financial...
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Blog post
The conundrum around India’s new agricultural reforms: Where do farmers stand?
While the recent agricultural reforms in India have been hailed by some experts as a much-needed move towards privatisation and liberalisation of the sector, there is also a concern amongst some that the opening up of the agricultural market may also lead to corporate cartelisation. Additionally, critics have pointed out the procedural inadequacy of the reforms and how many...
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Blog post
Housing in Hawassa: How to accommodate migrant labour in industrialising cities
Lessons from China might inform urbanisation and industrialisation in Ethiopia, including labour rights and housing policies within an expanding manufacturing market. As we discuss in the first blog of this China-Africa series, urbanisation in sub-Saharan Africa has so far not been accompanied by a process of industrialisation, contrasting with the development...
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Blog post
What a rapidly urbanising Africa can learn from China’s experience
The parallels between Africa and China’s urbanisation trajectories could offer policymakers potential policy design lessons to learn from. For example, some of China’s recent successes in managing urbanisation, if adequately adapted to the unique and diverse African context, could potentially help the continent’s burgeoning city growth become more sustainable and...
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Blog post
The growing concern around violence against women in India – Where do we stand?
Violence against women is rampant in India, hinders educational attainment and earnings potential, and has significant economic and social costs. COVID-19 has exposed the fault lines of gender equality, with increases in the incidence of domestic violence during lockdown. Social programmes to sensitise men and boys on gender-related issues, and community-level platforms...
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Blog post
Africa Industrialization Week 2020: Industrial development, trade, and COVID-19
Following Africa Industrialization Week 2020, we take stock of trends in African industrialisation, as well as look at the ways that COVID-19 has disrupted industries, trade, and supply chains. Each year since 1990, African leaders, key stakeholders, and pan-African organisations meet on the 20th of November to celebrate Africa Industrialization Day (AID), which kicks off...
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Blog post
Africa Industrialization Week 2020: Policies for the future
Accelerating economic transformation and industrialisation is vital to create jobs, raise incomes, and reduce poverty in Africa. Industrialisation and international trade are critical drivers of this process. Combined with recommendations from three industrialisation experts we spoke with, we propose three complementary policy recommendations in advancing these...
Blog post
Leaders and citizens: Women’s political participation in India
Women’s political participation has emerged as a key element of the discourse around the upcoming state elections in India. In this post, Nalini Gulati and Ella Spencer explore the evidence on various aspects of women’s political engagement in the country – representation in government, women as political leaders, and women as active citizens. According to the WEF...