Economic Development
ORF America
Outlook 2026: Emerging markets will need a new ...

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.

Outlook 2026: Emerging markets will need a new playbook
Energy & Climate
ORF America
Grids Will Decide the Global South’s AI Future

By Medha Prasanna

Without intentional strategies to strengthen energy infrastructure, the Global South will remain largely a consumer of AI technologies.

Grids Will Decide the Global South’s AI Future
Background Paper
ORF America
DIGITAL PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE AND THE FUTURE OF ...

Background Paper No. 37

By Anit Mukherjee and Caroline Arkalji

DIGITAL PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE AND THE FUTURE OF DIGITAL PAYMENTS: LESSONS FROM PIX AND UPI
Economic Development
ORF America
Digital Payments and Women’s Empowerment: ...

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?

Digital Payments and Women’s Empowerment: Insights from PESP in the Chittagong Hill Tracts
Economic Development
ORF America
Trevor Manuel report: Africa’s post-G20 Bretton ...

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.

Trevor Manuel report: Africa’s post-G20 Bretton Woods moment?

Medha Prasanna

,

The Future of Climate Cooperation between the United States and India

,
The Future of Climate Cooperation between the United States and India

This volume of short working papers is a product of ORF America’s U.S.-India Emerging Climate Leaders as they attempt to develop ideas around climate collaboration and communication for the United States and India.

Special Report

By Abigail Doerr, Amol Kapoor, Bhagyashri Kulkarni, Dhruva Jaishankar, Jonika Rathi, Karan Sinha, Lindsay Maizland, Medha Prasanna, Meenakshi Venkatraman, Miaoru Guan, Mridu Jhangiani, Pankaj Mahalle, Patrick Soltis, Paul Gordon, Perrin Krisko, Sabareesh Suresh, Tanya Kak, Vandita Sariya, Vanshica Kant, and Vedant Patil

Editors: Caroline Arkalji, Jeffrey D. Bean, and Medha Prasanna

,

India's Role in Diversifying Global Clean Energy Supply Chains

,
India's Role in Diversifying Global Clean Energy Supply Chains

Ongoing armed conflicts in Europe and the Middle East and a fractured trade relationship between the world’s two largest economies, the United States and China, mean the energy transition cannot take economic integration and its accompanying benefits for granted.

Special Report

By Raj Sawhney, Shayak Sengupta, and Gregory Wischer

Editor: Shayak Sengupta

Observer Research Foundation America, 1100 17th St. NW, Suite 501, Washington DC 20036 USA