Background Paper No. 25
By Ammar Nainar
By Udaibir Das
Global financial institutions continue to frame the 2026 outlook for emerging markets through a familiar cyclical lens. The consensus assumes U.S. monetary easing, a softer dollar and a modest global slowdown will favor local-currency assets, credible disinflation paths and balance-sheet repair. This narrative is historically grounded and internally coherent. It is also increasingly insufficient.
By Medha Prasanna
Without intentional strategies to strengthen energy infrastructure, the Global South will remain largely a consumer of AI technologies.
By Brian Webster, Alan Gelb, and Anit Mukherjee
Shifting the payment of social transfers from cash to direct deposit via bank or mobile money accounts can directly improve efficiency for governments and convenience for beneficiaries. It may also produce positive spillovers such as boosting financial inclusion and empowering women. But do these spillovers materialize, and under what circumstances?
By Udaibir Das
The Trevor Manuel G20 Africa Expert Panel Report reframes Africa’s constraints as a single system of mispricing, debt compression and governance asymmetry. Its proposals for refinancing, collective bargaining and International Monetary Fund quota reform mark the first coordinated attempt to shift power within the international financial architecture.
By Udaibir Das
To effectively manage debt and all liabilities, a top-down, country-wide reform is necessary to move towards a comprehensive liability management function.
By Kirat Singh, Tapas Peshin, Shayak Sengupta, Sumil K Thakrar, Christopher W Tessum, Jason D Hill, Inês M L Azevedo and Stephen P Luby
Absolute annual mortality ranges from less than 1 to over 650 deaths/year across units, and the mortality intensity of generation varies from under 0.002 to 0.43 deaths/GWh.
By Tapas Peshin, Shayak Sengupta, Sumil K Thakrar, Kirat Singh, Jason Hill, Joshua S Apte, Christopher W Tessum, Julian D Marshall and Inês M L Azevedo
Higher increases in pollution exposure are seen in scheduled castes/tribes, poor, and rural populations particularly in high coal production states.
By Dhruva Jaishankar
But the biggest obstacle remains China. China alone among the P-5 has not voiced support for the expansion of permanent UNSC seats but often hides behind others in negotiations.
Contribution from the Cyberspace Cooperation Initiative at the Observer Research Foundation America in the context of the seventh substantive session of the Open-ended Working Group on security of and in the use of information and communications technologies 2021-2025 (March 2024).
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