Rising inequality is, at its core, a political and policy choice. This is the central message of the Global Justice Report authored by experts based at the World Inequality Lab, led by economists Thomas Piketty and Lucas Chancel. As economists and experts on labour, inequality and the informal economy, we believe there is a great…
Why good African businesses and projects can struggle to cross the funding redline Africa has never suffered from a shortage of ideas. It suffers from a shortage of capital willing to believe in those ideas. Across the continent, entrepreneurs are building businesses, engineers are designing infrastructure, farmers are developing agricultural value chains, innovators are creating…
President Donald Trump is looking for unlikely allies as he rolls out a new agenda to try to address Americans’ concerns about affordability and position Republicans for the midterm elections: progressives. On Monday, he called Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., after she delivered a speech excoriating her own party for being too cozy with its wealthy…
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has given a positive assessment of a conversation he had with US envoys on how to end the Russia-Ukraine war. Zelensky said Thursday’s call with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, which lasted nearky an hour, had yielded “new ideas in terms of formats, meetings, and… timing on how to bring a…
Almost 2 million years ago, a young ancient human died beside a spring near a lake in what is now Tanzania, in eastern Africa. After archaeologists uncovered his fossilized bones in 1960, they used them to define Homo habilis – the earliest known member of our own genus. Paleoanthropologists define the first examples of the…
It remains too difficult for Africans to travel between African countries. Africa-wide reforms have failed. The keynote continental agreement, the African Union’s Protocol on Free Movement of Persons, adopted in 2018, still has only four country ratifications from 55 members. A new report of the African Union bemoans the low (though slightly improved) level of…
Across most of Africa, rural communities grow their own food, relying on smallholder agriculture. But climate change is threatening this way of life. Rising temperatures, erratic rainfall and degraded soils are already shrinking harvests. This is pushing millions of smallholder farmers into deeper poverty. Yet some African farmers are embracing innovative, cost-effective and environmentally friendly…
Poverty, inequality, and food insecurity continue to affect millions of South Africans. Mandela Day, observed on 18 July, is a chance to honour Nelson Mandela’s 67 years of activism by dedicating 67 minutes of service toward creating positive social change in our communities. More than just a symbolic gesture, Mandela Day is a powerful reminder…
