Mo Ibrahim, a Sudanese-British entrepreneur, founded one of the largest mobile phone companies that operated on the African continent. In 2006, he established the Mo Ibrahim Foundation with the goal of fostering improved governance. The foundation publishes The Ibrahim Index of African Governance, which assesses governance performance in 54 African countries. It also awards the Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership (worth $5 million) to African leaders who have successfully delivered security, health, education, and economic development to their constituents and have democratically transferred power to their successors.

Resources:

• The Road to COP27 Making Africa‚Äôs Case in the Global¬† Climate Debate(July 2022)
• "Billionaire Mo Ibrahim attacks ‚Äėhypocrisy‚Äô over Africa‚Äôs gas", The Guardian, 17 October 2022

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In the bestselling book ‚Äď Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (2012), Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson ask why some nations are rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine. They claim that it is neither culture, weather, nor geography. Rather, they argue that economic success depends on man-made political and economic institutions. In their latest book, The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty (2019), Daron and Jim show that liberal-democratic states exist in between the alternatives of lawlessness and authoritarianism. And while the state is needed to protect people from domination at the hands of others in society, the state can also become an instrument of violence and repression. Society‚Äôs default condition is anarchy (or the "Absent Leviathan"). The alternatives to chaos are despotism (the "Despotic Leviathan"), the powerless state (the "Paper Leviathan"), and the "Shackled Leviathan" (or state which equals the corridor between the Absent, Paper, and Despotic Leviathans). Thus, liberty originates from a delicate balance of power between state and society.

Daron Acemoglu is Institute Professor in the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). 

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A complex web of factors¬†affects our ability¬†not only¬†to meet nutritional needs,¬†but also our efforts to¬†sustain biodiversity and protect the environment. As the world's agricultural, environmental, and nutritional needs intersect‚ÄĒand often collide‚ÄĒhow can nations, international organizations¬†and consumers¬†work together to reverse the damage by changing how we make, distribute, and¬†buy food?¬†And do we have the right to eat wrongly?

Jessica Fanzo is the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Global Food & Agricultural Policy and Ethics at Johns Hopkins University. She has previously worked as an advisor for various organizations and governments including the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the Scaling Up Nutrition movement (SUN), the UN Standing Committee on Nutrition (UNSCN), and the World Health Organization (WHO). Her latest book is Can Fixing Dinner Fix the Planet? 

• Inextricably bound together by food (OECD forum)
• It's Her Time: Jess Fanzo¬† (Worldwildlife.org)
• The Future of Food (video interview, CGTN)
• Twitter: @jessfanzo

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Peter Singer ‚ÄĒ one of the world‚Äôs most influential philosophers ‚ÄĒ ¬†is¬†the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. Peter has written several influential books, including Animal Liberation,¬†The Expanding Circle: Ethics and Sociobiology,¬†The Most Good You Can Do,¬†Why Vegan? Eating Ethically and The Life You Can Save: How To Do Your Part To End World Poverty. He is one of the¬†intellectual¬†founders of the modern¬†animal rights and¬†effective altruism movements and has made important contributions to the development of bioethics. Twitter: @PeterSinger

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In many parts of the African continent, there are so many roadblocks that it is indeed very hard to find a road that does not have one. But what is the point of having so many roadblocks that are often viewed by travellers to cause considerable inconvenience?

In a brilliant new book ‚ÄĒ¬†Roadblock Politics: The Origins of Violence in Central Africa ‚ÄstPeer Schouten maps over¬†a thousand roadblocks¬†in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic,¬†in order to document¬†how communities, rebels, and state security forces forge resistance and power out of control over these narrow points of passage.

Peer Schouten is Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies and Associate Researcher at the International Peace Information Service. Twitter: @peer_schouten

 

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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has already caused untold suffering to millions of people and upended the global order as we know it. The international community, apart from a few exceptions, has been largely united in its condemnation of this attack on a sovereign country’s ability to decide its own future. And several sanctions have thus far been imposed on Russia, many of which also target President Putin, senior Russian officials, and their rich financial backers. President Putin has tried, although without much success, to justify what he terms to be a military operation (and not an invasion). President Zelenskyy of Ukraine has refused to flee his war-ravaged country, and this, together with his regular morale boosting social media posts, has made him a household name in many parts of the world. 

What kind of threat does Ukraine pose to Russia? How did we get to this point? Can President Putin withstand the backlash from this war? What is Russia’s role and purpose in a new global order, and how has it managed to develop an outsized influence in international politics even though it does not have the traditional means of power possessed by the United States or China? 

Kathryn Stoner is the Mosbacher Director of Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). She is also a Senior Fellow the Hoover Institution and a professor of political science. She has conducted extensive research on contemporary Russia and has a new book: "Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order". Twitter: @kath_stoner

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In global development, ideas have power and some ideas or concepts such as social capital, human development, the informal sector, and sustainable development have been highly influential. The development agenda also includes metaphors that can shape how we think and hence how we act. 

Professor Desmond James McNeill has worked extensively on issues related to global governance, aid, and sustainable development and on the links between research and policy. He was director of the Centre for Development and the Environment at the University of Oslo from 1992 to 2001. And from 2001 and until a couple of years ago, he was Head of Research, and Director of the Centre’s Research School.

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There is a great deal of attention these days on the backlash against democracy around the world. In a forthcoming book, Democratic Backsliding in Africa? Autocratization, Resilience, and Contention, my guest Lise Rakner and her two co-authors (Leonardo R. Arriola and Nicolas van de Walle) conclude that the African continent’s democratic experience over the past two decades largely reflects status quo politics. Thus, there is neither substantial progress nor regression in the advancement of civil and political freedoms since the initial transitions to democracy in the early 1990s.

Lise Rakner is a professor of political science at the University of Bergen. She studies democratization and autocratization, focusing particularly on human rights, electoral politics, and political parties. Twitter: @li63ra 

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Pranab Bardhan is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He has undertaken pioneering research on international trade, the political economy of development policies, decentralised governance, and the political economy of development in China and India. His latest book, A World of Insecurity: Democratic Disenchantment in Rich and Poor Countries, is scheduled to be published by Harvard University Press later this year.

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Joseph S. Nye is the University Distinguished Service Professor, Emeritus and former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

He is the author of numerous highly influential books, including: 

• Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics¬†(2004)
• The Powers to Lead¬† (2008)
• The Future of Power¬†(2011)
• Is the American Century Over?¬†(2015)
• Do Morals Matter?¬†Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump¬† (2020)

Joe Nye has also served in various capacities in the US government, as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, Chair of the National Intelligence Council, and Deputy Under Secretary of State for Security Assistance, Science and Technology. 

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