Calls for a green industrial revolution and transition away from greenhouse gas (GHG) emitting forms of energy are anything but novel. The newest to make the call is the International Energy Agency (IEA), which calls in a 2021 report for immediately halting oil and gas development and achieving net-zero emissions from electricity generation by 2040.1 […]

On 30th November 2021, Barbados became a republic. Nearly 400 years after the first British ship arrived on the island, and exactly 55 years after independence from British colonial rule, Prime Minister Mia Mottley conducted a ceremony replacing Queen Elizabeth II with Dame Sandra Mason as the head of state. Bells chimed across the capital, […]

For every 5 hours the average Indian woman spends on unpaid care work in a day, a man spends half an hour—a ratio over three times the global average.[i] Changing this ratio can dismantle entrenched gender roles and arrest the declining participation of women in India’s paid workforce. Alarmingly, between 2006 and 2021, India’s female […]

Ben Chester Cheong argues that Singapore’s unique political and legal system helped lay the foundation for the country’s economic growth. He points to Singapore’s high-quality judiciary which is trusted by its citizens to deliver principled and fair outcomes, as well as its use of deterrence which has enabled its reputation as one of the safest cities in the world.

If LAC wants to close its infrastructure gap and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, the region will need to significantly increase investment in infrastructure. The pre-pandemic annual investment level of 1.4% of GDP compares poorly with the 3.1% needed to close the gap. Finding innovative policies to finance them would ensure that […]

At present, Singapore is the only country to have taken steps to dissolve a local chapter of South Korea’s Shincheonji Church. Jonathan Chan uses this decision as a lens to probe the state’s approaches to religious management. He argues that Shincheonji failed to align with Singapore’s model of multi-religious toleration, in particular through its lack of transparency about its intentions and motivations. This was seen as potentially causing fissures within families and Christian denominations, prompting the government’s intervention in dissolving the chapter.

Over the last 50 years, schooling expanded dramatically in most low- and middle-income countries, however, some disparities still remain, and have even been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. In Peru, even though in 2019, 97% of children between 6 and 11 years old had access to primary education, 13% of youngsters between 12 and 16 […]

In October 2021, art-based non-fungible token (NFT) project CryptoPunk 9998 sold for over $500 million dollars,isetting a world record for the most expensive NFT sold at the time. However, by leveraging blockchain’s transparency, many commentators soon discovered that 9998’s record-breaking price was not the result of a genuine purchase. Instead, the CryptoPunk’s owner simply utilized […]

While CBDCs hold tremendous potential in closing the financial inclusion gap in LAC, they will also encounter many roadblocks generated by cultural, social, and economic determinants. Central banks and other authorities will be tasked with no less than integrating the vulnerable and marginalized into the financial system.  Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) have recently taken […]

In 2016, Venezuela’s leader Nicolás Maduro designated an area larger than the size of Portugal as a “strategic development zone” to facilitate the mining of gold and other minerals. The area, called “The Orinoco Mining Arc,” includes some of the most pristine areas of the Amazon and borders Canaima National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage […]

A Tuesday afternoon. The semester had just started, and I was already caught in the frenzy of everyday Harvard life. I took a sandwich to my room and opened a TED talk on leadership for my next class. “Make a difference,” “create value,” “change the world”: I had seen many of these talks before, so […]

Ever since The Crimson Editorial Board came out with its endorsement of BDS and the Free Palestine movements, the negative responses to it have been frantic. Accusations are being made of antisemitism and rejection of the right of Israel to exist, and everyone has something to say about this.  That is, everyone but the Palestinians. […]