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?

Smart Cities as Large Technological Systems: Collective Action Problems as Organizational Barriers to Urban Digital Transformation

Smart Cities as Large Technological Systems: Collective Action Problems as Organizational Barriers to Urban Digital Transformation

By Andreas Kuehn

In a race to develop ‘smart cities’, policymakers in metropolitan regions across the world are rapidly deploying IoT devices, sensors, and emerging ICTs, including AI and facial recognition to solve various urban governance challenges, including the need to increase efficiencies, and empower citizens.

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