The modern development aid industry is fundamentally flawed, writer and researcher Efosa Ojomo argues, because it is based on “the idea of seeing a need, seeing that a community lacks a resource, and then leaning in with the best of intentions to provide that resource without the fundamental mechanism that will sustain it.” That mechanism is what Ojomo and his co-authors call a “market-creating innovation”—an advance that spurs the creation of new businesses, customers and tax revenues that allow for improved public services. Ojomo is the head of the Global Prosperity research group at the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive [...]
Most African countries have fared relatively well in their responses to the coronavirus pandemic, reporting rates of infection and mortality that are far below those seen across much of Europe and the Americas. Yet Africa is expected to take a huge economic hit from the pandemic and its associated containment measures, with the African Development Bank forecasting that an additional 50 million people could be pushed into extreme poverty across the continent. Vaccination drives and economic relief packages will certainly be important to contain the damage. But according to author and researcher Efosa Ojomo, emerging-market nations should be aiming to [...]
After Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko won a sixth term last August in an election that was widely decried as rigged, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to demand his resignation. Rather than capitulate or compromise, Lukashenko unleashed a reign of terror that has included arbitrary arrests, torture, psychological abuse and other ill-treatment of protesters. That is one of the main factors that has allowed the aging dictator to remain in power despite the unrest, says Dan Peleschuk, a freelance journalist who himself was imprisoned for two days in Minsk last summer while attempting to cover the protests. [...]
