A faster path to digital transformation in Latin America
By Angel Melguizo, Vice President, Economic, External & Regulatory Affairs, VRIO Corp; Eduardo Salido Cornejo, Head, Public Affairs Intelligence, Telefónica Hispanoamérica; and Welby Leaman, Senior Director, Global Policy Strategy, Walmart[1]
Covid-19 put in stark relief the urgent need for accelerated digitalisation around the world. The good news is that so many people stepped up to meet this challenge. In many parts of the private sector, digital rollout that business executives thought would take years was achieved in weeks or even days, as customers’ digital adoption soared. Latin America was no exception to this phenomenon: in mid-March 2020, internet traffic increased by more than 40% practically overnight. The robustness of telecommunications infrastructure in the region – built by decades of investment – and the flexibility of many Latin American governments during the pandemic, were among the factors that facilitated this transition.
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Can the African Continental Free Trade Area drive Africa’s automotive industry?
By Anthony Black, Professor of Economics at the University of Cape Town [1]
With a large and growing middle class, Africa has huge potential as an automotive market. Vehicle ownership rates across the continent are low, at just 45 per 1 000 persons compared with a global rate of 203 per 1 000. Even more striking is the low level of production: the continent accounts for less than 1% of global vehicle output. Outside South Africa and Morocco, production is minimal: most small national markets are supplied by imports, consisting mainly of used cars shipped primarily from Europe, Japan and the US.
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Above or below the poverty line: Three key questions for understanding shifts in global poverty
By Andy Sumner, Professor of International Development, Department of International Development, School of Global Affairs, Faculty of Social Sciences and Public Policy, King’s College London and Eduardo Ortiz-Juarez, Senior Fellow (Non-Resident), United Nations University WIDER; Research Associate, OPHI, University of Oxford & Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences
In 2010 and the following years, there was attention to the fact that much of global poverty had shifted to middle-income countries (for example here, here, and here). The world’s poor hadn’t moved of course, but the countries that are home to large numbers of poor people had got better off on average and poverty hadn’t fallen as much as one might expect with economic growth in those countries moving from low-income to middle-income. There were also some big questions over the country categories themselves. One could say the world’s poor live not in the world’s poorest countries but in fast growing countries and countries with burgeoning domestic resources to address poverty albeit ‘locked’ by domestic political economy (who doesn’t want cheap petrol?)
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Value chains in Africa: what role for regional trade?
By Eyerusalem Siba, Economist and international expert in private sector development, spatial industrial policies and sustainable urbanisation
The Covid-19 pandemic and associated containment measures hit businesses hard, exposing them to record levels of uncertainty, disrupting value chains, and reversing countries’ hard-earned progress in economic and social development. The knock-on effects of these disruptions on GDP, foreign direct investment (FDI), trade and industrial production have been highest among globally integrated economies that have smaller domestic markets, rely heavily on vulnerable sectors and have limited capacity to adjust.
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How to fix the failures of climate finance
By Saleemul Huq, Director, International Centre for Climate Change and Development, Independent University Bangladesh
One of the positive outcomes of the COP26 held in Glasgow, Scotland in November 2021 was a universal acknowledgement of the failure of developed countries to deliver climate finance to developing countries, and even of developing countries themselves to actually deliver to the most vulnerable communities within their own territories.
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Why the least developed countries of the Commonwealth are doing better at trade
By Brendan Vickers, Economic Adviser and Head, International Trade Policy Section; Salamat Ali, Economic Adviser & Trade Economist and Neil Balchin, Economic Adviser, Trade Policy Analysis, The Commonwealth Secretariat
In 2020, the share of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in world trade remained at just 1%. Although the Istanbul Programme of Action (IPoA) for LDCs and SDG target 17.11 both sought to double LDCs’ share of global exports by 2020, the world’s 47 LDCs missed the target. While this could be regarded as a “lost decade” for gains from trade, the performance of the Commonwealth’s 14 LDCs tells a more promising story: their collective share in global exports was 1.27 times higher in 2020 than in 2011 and two LDCs — Rwanda and Tuvalu — almost doubled their share of world exports.
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Why we need greater transparency on how aid is taxed
By Jorge Moreira da Silva, Director of the OECD Development Co-operation Directorate and Pascal Saint-Amans, Director, OECD Centre for Tax Policy and Administration
Should projects financed by foreign aid be subject to tax? Historically, donors have claimed tax exemptions on most projects funded by Official Development Assistance (ODA), reasonably arguing this would maximise the impact of ODA, not least by sparing these projects from the perceived hazards of high taxes, lack of transparency and corrupt or inefficient government institutions. However, these assumptions have been increasingly challenged in recent years. Many developing countries have made strides in improving their tax systems, simplifying regimes, professionalising administration and reducing the burden of compliance.
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How Latin America can tackle the international and national drivers of discontent
By Rita Da Costa, Senior Counsellor and Head of Development in Transition, Adriana Caicedo, Policy Analyst and Martina Lejtreger, External Consultant, OECD Development Centre
Deepening economic disparity, inequalities and social injustice have been at the heart of the mass demonstrations that have multiplied in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) since late 2019. This trend is likely to intensify in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the number of people in poverty has increased by 22 million since the start of the COVID-19 crisis and inequalities continue to rise, the stock of wealth held by billionaires in LAC has risen by more than 40%. The current context opens a window of opportunity for LAC to exit the crisis by establishing a new social contract, but this will require a step change in international co-operation.
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How migrants can best benefit from the use of digital tech
By Tim Unwin, Chairholder, UNESCO Chair in ICT4D, Royal Holloway, University of London
UN agencies, donors, and civil society organisations have invested considerable time, money and effort in finding novel ways through which migrants, and especially refugees, can benefit from the use of digital technologies. Frequently this has been through the development of apps specifically designed to provide them with information, advice and support, both during the migration journey and in their destination countries. All too often, though, these initiatives have been short-lived or have failed to gain much traction. The InfoAid app, for example, launched by Migration Aid in Hungary amid considerable publicity in 2015 to make life easier for migrants travelling to Europe, posted a poignant last entry on its Facebook page in 2017: “InfoAid app for refugees is being rehauled, so no posting at the moment. Hopefully we will be back soon in a new and improved form! Thank you all for your support!”
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Forced migration in Nigeria is a development issue
By Fatima Mamman-Daura, Acting Director at National Commission for Refugees Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons
No other country in Africa, outside the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia, is facing a mixed-migration challenge as severe as that of Nigeria, characterised by prolonged internal displacement, migrant smuggling, human trafficking and ‘brain drain’. Over the course of a decade, low levels of short-term internal displacement in Nigeria have transformed into widespread, large-scale and protracted displacement.
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