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

The UK’s National Wealth Fund: A Guiding Beacon or a Lost Mirage? Strengthening Governance to Empower the UK’s Future

The UK’s National Wealth Fund: A Guiding Beacon or a Lost Mirage? Strengthening Governance to Empower the UK’s Future

By Udaibir Das

The UK is poised to make a significant impact with the National Wealth Fund (NWF), a fund designed to spearhead its green transition and support sustainable growth. Will the UK’s NWF be a guiding economic beacon or just a political mirage?

The Power of the Private Sector: Boosting Climate Resilience

The Power of the Private Sector: Boosting Climate Resilience

By Udaibir Das

The IMF’s RST is a significant step forward in mobilising climate finance, focused on leveraging private sector involvement. By learning from the RST’s successes and challenges, other international efforts can enhance their strategies to attract private capital, creating a more sustainable and resilient global economy.

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India's Role in Diversifying Global Clean Energy Supply Chains

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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

Air pollution mortality from India's coal power plants: unit-level estimates for targeted policy

Air pollution mortality from India's coal power plants: unit-level estimates for targeted policy

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.

Air quality, health, and equity impacts of vehicle electrification in India

Air quality, health, and equity impacts of vehicle electrification in India

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.

Cyber Stakeholders: ORF America's Contributions to Multilateralism at the UN Open-Ended Working Group

Cyber Stakeholders: ORF America's Contributions to Multilateralism at the UN Open-Ended Working Group

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).

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