Sovereign Stabilization Funds and the End of the Commodities Super-cycle: What are the Challenges?

In Thomas Mann’s novel Death in Venice, the character Gustav von Aschenbach is not alarmed when he arrives with his wife in Venice by boat and encounters health inspectors questioning disembarking passengers. He begins to notice that more and more guests at the hotel he is staying are leaving. The hotel barber mentions something about a disease. Strolling through the city, watching the gondolas ahead of him, von Aschenbach smells the scent of germicide in the air and becomes increas ...

Food insecurity is not a new concern. Many people around the world are already undernourished because of several factors, including climatic, economic, and political factors. Unfortunately, in times of crisis, as currently with COVID-19, food insecurity becomes more acute and requires urgent intervention to mitigate the negative impact on people's access to food. Aware of this, many governments have implemented different short-term measures to tackle this issue. However, it is impor ...

Dans cette période de catastrophe planétaire, le risque d'un nombre élevé de victimes en raison de la faiblesse des systèmes de santé de nombreux Etats africains, anglophones ou francophones, est plus qu’évident pour l’observateur averti. Les circonstances actuelles interdisent des commentaires évidemment superflus sur les infrastructures médicales, globalement défaillantes. Ces insuffisances sont connues et vécues au quotidien par les populations des diverses régions du continent, ...

From the moment China reported a new mysterious disease to the WHO, in the last day of 2019, the scientific community started following the situation with increasing concern. However, in many places like the UK, where I live, and Portugal, where I am from, the collective memory of recent public health crises like SARS and Ebola added up to “much ado about nothing” – a massive media frenzy that promised a pandemic but did not deliver one. That is perhaps why it took so long to regist ...

يلف موضوع الحجر الصحي في المغرب الأقصى خلال العصر الوسيط ضباب كثيف، لا تساعد المصادر على انقشاعه. ومع ذلك يمكن القول إن من أهم القضايا التي كانت تشغل بال مغاربة العصور الوسطى أثناء حدوث الوباء، حقيقة العدوى من عدمها، فكانوا يطرحون السؤال الآتي: هل يخُالَطُ المصاب بالوباء أم لا؟ الموقف النظري من المخالطة بين الرفض والقبول تراوحت المواقف بين نفي العدوى بالوباء وإثباتها، وكان في مقدمة النافين لها أغلب الفقهاء، مستندين على نصوص شرعية تقول بعدم وجودها من وجهة نظر فهمهم لها، وتعتبر الوب ...

Covid-19 should change global politics. The speed and scale of its transmission, and the severity of its impact is not, we know now, to our cost. As the virus rapidly tracks people vectors worldwide, the control of its impact is inextricably linked to the availability of resources and depth of governance. For these reasons, global leaders should focus on its impact among the most vulnerable, and in particular in Africa. Just three months ago, on 31 December 2019, Chinese authoritie ...