Antoinette Sayeh is deputy managing director of the IMF, and Ralph Chami is assistant director of the IMF’s Institute for Capacity Development.
Credit: URDEE IMAGE/ZUMA WIRE/ALAMY LIVE NEWS
Jun 4 2020 (IPS) – The COVID-19 pandemic is crippling the economies of rich and poor countries alike. Yet for many low-income and fragile states, the economic shock will be magnified by the loss of remittances—money sent home by migrant and guest workers employed in foreign countries.
Remittance flows into low-income and fragile states represent a lifeline that supports households as well as provides much-needed tax revenue. As of 2018, remittance flows to these countri…
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jun 18 2020 (IPS) – How often have you heard someone lamenting or even condemning inequality in society, concluding with an appeal to meritocracy? We like to think that if only the deserving, the smart ones, those we deem competent or capable, often meaning the ones who are more like us, were in charge, things would be better, or just fine.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Meritocracy’s appeal
Since the 1960s, many institutions, the world over, have embraced the notion of meritocracy. With post-Cold War neoliberal ideologies enabling growing wealth concentration, the rich, the privileged and their apologists invoke variants of ‘meritocracy’ to legitimize …
NAIROBI, Jul 15 2020 (IPS) – While men are more likely to die from COVID-19, women are facing the full blow of the socio-economic fallout from the ongoing pandemic as well as seeing a reversal in equality gains made over the last two decades, says an all-women panel of international thought leaders, who met virtually during a discussion convened by IPS.
“The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Women and Girls” took place on Tuesday, Jul. 14, with the aim to bring to the fore the dangers of neglecting gender dimensions in COVID-19 response and recovery plans.
The panel included gender and development experts with a wide range of expertise:
Catherine Bertini, a…
Aug 21 2020 – Pandemic-related lockdowns, flight cancellations, and border closures may be putting a crimp on summer vacation plans. However, the precipitous drop in tourism will have an outsized impact on countries that rely on foreign travelers—with potentially large-scale effects on their economies’ national accounts.
Costa Rica, Greece, Morocco, Portugal, and Thailand could be among the hardest hit with losses in tourism proceeds exceeding 3 percent of GDP, according to the IMF’s recently released .
The chart calculates direct tourism impacts on imports, exports, and current account balances under a scenario that envisions gradual reopenings in September but a drop of about 70 percent in tourism receipts and international tourism arrivals in 2020.
A cou…
In countries like Malawi, there are simply not enough mental health professionals to go around. The local faith community can help fill this void. Credit: Unsplash /Melanie Wasser.
BLANTYRE, Malawi, Oct 14 2020 (IPS) – The world is actually in the throes of two pandemics. The first is COVID-19. The second is the wave of stress and anxiety, depression and substance use it has unleashed around the world. Most mental health disorders are treatable.
This so called “” is raging in poor and wealthy countries alike. But ac…
Batara slum in a Dhaka suburb. Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS
ROME, Nov 26 2020 (IPS) – The recent meeting of the G20 – scheduled to take place in Riyadh but held virtually due to the Coronavirus pandemic – has been an eloquent example of how the world is drifting, in a crisis of leadership.
It was, in a sense, a showcase. Everybody had to accept the view that the host of the meeting, the ailing King Salman of Saudi Arabia, was accompanied on TV screens by his apparent heir, Prince Mohamed bin Salman, who is clearly the mastermind of the brutal assassination, dismembering and disappearance of the body of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Only a united Africa can defeat COVID-19. Credit: WHO
NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan 5 2021 (IPS) – The ANTICOV COVID-19 clinical trial, aimed at identifying treatments that prevent mild cases from progressing to severe forms of the disease, is crucial to Africa, researchers say. The trial will investigate home-based treatments to help prevent local health systems from being overwhelmed.
Borna Nyaoke-Anoke, Senior Clinical Project Manager Medical Manager for DNDi, says that the studies target mild and moderate cases of COVID-19 and are important to Africa because lower-income countries remain under-represented in COVID-19 studies. The vast majority of COVID-19 clinic…
Martin Kropff, Director General, CIMMYT and Nteranya Sanginga, Director General, IITA
A woman farmer in Mozambique with DT maize harvest. Credit: CIMMYT
IBADAN and MEXICO CITY, Feb 17 2021 (IPS) – 17 February African smallholder farmers have no choice but to adapt to climate change: 2020 was the second hottest year on record, while prolonged droughts and explosive floods are directly threatening the livelihoods of millions. By the 2030s, lack of rainfall and rising temperatures could render 40 percent of Africa’s maize-growing area unsuitable for climate-vulnerable varieties grown by farmers, while maize remains the preferred and affordable staple …
The UN will be commemorating World Water Day on Monday March 22.
A woman in Madagascar walks for up to 14km a day to find clean water. Credit: UNICEF/Safidy Andrianantenain
LONDON, Mar 19 2021 (IPS) – For many, the last year will be remembered as the time our day-to-day lives screeched to a halt. As Covid-19 spread mercilessly across the world, wreaking havoc on health and livelihoods, world leaders, health experts and scientists grappled with how to protect populations and stem the tide of the virus.
It is right that attention has been focused on the immediate threat posed by the pandemic; the global death toll has surpassed 2.6 million people a…
The writer is a Palestinian living in Gaza and a policy officer for Oxfam.
Young Palestinians drive their boat along the coast near the Gaza Sea port, selling boat rides as a way to earn a living. Credit: Laila Barhoum/ Oxfam
GAZA, Apr 29 2021 (IPS) – We were able to keep the coronavirus at bay for five months in Gaza, the densely populated Palestinian strip of land surrounded by Israel that I call home. But the Coronavirus doesn’t respect walls or artificial borders. While preparations were made for the pandemic to inevitably breach a blockade so few Palestinians can, we waited for it to come for us. And it did.
In one of the most sealed off places in the…