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?
Economic Development
ORF America
Africa’s Ubuntu economics takes the G20 stage

By Udaibir Das

Ubuntu economics does not invoke moral claims. It advances a structural argument: Africa’s demographic momentum, mineral endowments and ecological assets are central to global prosperity, and instability in the region imposes system-wide costs. The reform frameworks are now primarily in place. The question is whether the political and institutional conditions of 2026 permit their implementation.

Africa’s Ubuntu economics takes the G20 stage
Energy & Climate
ORF America
India and Mongolia Forge a New Energy Axis

By Piyush Verma and Telmen Altanshagai

Mongolia is not just a customer or supplier—but a co-partner in building new regional supply-chains, new corridors and new resource-alliances. It speaks to a future where India is not simply plugged into global energy markets, but co-creating them.

India and Mongolia Forge a New Energy Axis
Economic Development
ORF America
How ‘resilience’ became global finance’s mirage ...

By Udaibir Das

While stability prevails in institutional titles, resilience prevails in policy content. This shift influences the oversight and allocation of approximately $470tn in global financial assets. This has structural implications and affects public accountability.

How ‘resilience’ became global finance’s mirage of strength

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.

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