Economy

Despite a number of attempts from different sectors, poverty in Nepal is still a rampant phenomenon and the country remains one of the poorest countries in the world.

Pharmaceutical and tech companies and wealthy white Americans benefit from dramatic pandemic profits, further exacerbating inequality.

The goal of the buddy system is not the artificial redistribution of wealth from the wealthier to the poorer countries. The goal is to facilitate interaction and exchange between the buddy countries on different levels, from administration to citizen initiatives.

By Winston Mwale Leaders from 26 East and Southern African countries are meeting in Malawi's capital, Lilongwe to make final touches to an agreement that may see the formation of what could prove to be Africa's largest free trade area.The proposed Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) is touted to improve the economic and social welfare of the citizens of the COMESA-EAC-SADC region.

A series of impact studies showed that microfinance had mixed results. Charging affordable interest rates and offering training as well as loans simply wasn’t profitable – and profitable microfinance did not have the full effect of economic gains that was intended. A course correction was needed.  

If the government takes serious actions to promote local and community entrepreneurship, this will not only diversify and uplift Nepal’s overall economy, but also provide enormous employment opportunities to Nepal’s jobless youths who have very few options for employment at the moment–apart from lying up in manpower agencies and heading for ill-paid foreign employment in the Gulf countries.

By Harris Zargar

Despite various efforts, child labour in India is still a common practice. Poverty forces children to seek jobs in undisclosed service sector and many are forced into prostitution, while many other become victims of human trafficking.

According to the OECD’s latest Global Outlook on Financing for Sustainable Development, developing countries are facing a shortfall of USD 1.7 trillion in the financing they would need this year to keep them on track for the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as governments and investors grapple with the health, economic and social impacts of the COVID-19 crisis.

 The report, Human Mobility, Shared Opportunities: A Review of the 2009 Human Development Report and the Way Ahead, looks back at the last decade and assesses how future policy responses could facilitate safe, orderly, and regular migration.

Sanja Ivandić After suffering some of the most degrading and cruel aspects of the war, twenty years ago, women of all nationalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina have managed to stay equally interested in the country's development, to invest in their education, to develop the most creative ways of self-employment through rural agriculture, crafts, arts, as well as to become change-makers through civil society initiatives.