Kira Lancker, University of Copenhagen At lakeside markets along Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest lake by area, choosing fish to eat is part of daily life. A customer might pick a tilapia based on its freshness, size, price, and farmed or non-farmed origin, much like shoppers do in markets and supermarkets around the world.
Odysseas Konstantinakos, European University Institute The world has never had more data, more models, or more economists. It has rarely felt more out of control. Uncertainty, not risk, has become the defining condition of our era. Central bankers invoke it. Political leaders use it to defer decisions and justify extraordinary decisions. Academics are
Hafte Gebreselassie Gebrihet, University of Oslo; University of Cape Town and Dan Banik, University of Oslo Africa faces declining aid, rising debt, climate pressure and a weakening global order. Official development assistance, the technical term for foreign aid, fell by 23.1% in 2025, the largest annual contraction on record. It’s projected to decline
Justin Visagie, University of the Witwatersrand It’s time South Africa faced up to an honest question: what if the formal economy can’t deliver the jobs that are needed? I am an economist who has been working closely with South Africa’s administrative tax data over the past five years – arguably the best way
Ph. A Juneteenth celebration at Franklin Park in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood in 2014. Zack Wittman/The Boston Globe via Getty Images Bobby J. Smith II, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign “Visiting Comanche Crossing on Juneteenth felt like freedom,” my father said as we pulled into Booker T. Washington Park, the site near what used to
Ph. Smoke rises from Israeli bombardment near the village of Kfar Tibnit in southern Lebanon on June 14, 2026. AFP via Getty Images Mireille Rebeiz, Dickinson College The United States and Iran inked a long-awaited provisional ceasefire deal on June 17, 2026. After months of uncertainty, the people of the Gulf region can,
Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, SOAS, University of London What a disaster the war against Iran has been for Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the United States and Iran signed on June 17 has formally brought a halt to the devastating war. Yet, as the ink dries on the 14-point
Tania Prinsloo, University of Johannesburg Foot and mouth disease is common in South Africa’s wildlife reserves. There are constant efforts to make sure it doesn’t spread to farmed animals. But since 2019 the country has seen repeated outbreaks on farms. In 2026 the country’s R80 billion (US$5 billion) beef industry faced a crisis
In the village of Suonenjoki, the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke) stands surrounded by a forest of pine trees. The local soils are not fertile and pine is pretty much the only species that can grow there. But in a nursery on campus, where young trees are grown from seed before being planted,
Ph. Hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans were shipped from the Gold Coast, today’s Ghana. National Maritime Museum, London, CC BY Nana Kesse, Clark University The transatlantic slave trade was a multilayered, highly commercialised global enterprise that lasted from the early 1500s to the mid 1800s. The events over this period are far