Africa

21 Items

President of the Republic of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro during a videoconference with Governors of the Southeast

Wikimedia CC/Palácio do Planalto

Analysis & Opinions - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Why Developing Countries Should Build Computational Modelling Capacity for Policy Analytics

| June 04, 2020

Kaveri Iychettira and Afreen Siddiqi explain why computational modelling is a useful tool, especially when stakes are high and resources are constrained, and detail why developing countries should build capacity for it. 

Marine One, with President Donald Trump aboard, lifts off above a member of the U.S. Secret Service

AP/Patrick Semansky

Analysis & Opinions - Project Syndicate

An Abysmal Failure of Leadership

| May 07, 2020

During times of crisis, the most effective leaders are those who can build solidarity by educating the public about its own interests. Sadly, in the case of COVID-19, the leaders of the world's two largest economies have gone in the opposite direction, all but ensuring that the crisis will deepen.

In this photo provided by the Syrian Civil Defense group known as the White Helmets, a destroyed ambulance is seen outside the Syrian Civil Defense main center after airstrikes in Ansari neighborhood in the rebel-held part of eastern Aleppo, Syria, Friday

Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets via AP

News

Podcast: Humanitarian Negotiation Series: Protection of Medical Personnel and Operations at the Frontlines

October 26, 2016

A podcast from the Advanced Training Program on Humanitarian Action (ATHA) program produced from a Middle East Initiative event on humanitarian negotiations to protect medical personnel and infrastructure on the frontlines of conflict zones on Thursday, October 6, 2016, featuring Professor Claude Bruderlein; Michael VanRooyen, Director, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative; Chairman, Brigham and Women's Hospital Department of Emergency Medicine, Professor, Harvard Medical School and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; François Stamm, Head of Delegation for the International Committee of the Red Cross, Washington, D.C.; Adrienne Fricke, Senior Fellow, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Visiting Scientist, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Military and police security patrol Gare du Nord station in Paris, France.

Getty Images

Analysis & Opinions - Agence Global

When is the moment to ask for more effective anti-terrorism policies?

| July 16, 2016

"What happens when, after another dozen major attacks, the chain of their barbarism outpaces the chain of our human solidarity? When is the permissible moment to start asking if we can muster as much wisdom and realism to fight terror as we do to harness emotions of solidarity? The recent increasing pace and widening geographic scope of terror suggest we are dealing with a qualitatively new kinds of terrorists — but the policy responses of governments and the emotional responses of entire societies suggest we have no idea how to respond to quell this monster."

A rural stove using biomass cakes, fuelwood and trash as cooking fuel... It is a major source of air pollution in India, and produces smoke and numerous indoor air pollutants at concentrations 5 times higher than coal.

Wikipedia

Journal Article - Nature Energy

Energy decisions reframed as justice and ethical concerns

| 6 May 2016

Many energy consumers, and even analysts and policymakers, confront and frame energy and climate risks in a moral vacuum, rarely incorporating broader social justice concerns. Here, to remedy this gap, we investigate how concepts from justice and ethics can inform energy decision-making by reframing five energy problems — nuclear waste, involuntary resettlement, energy pollution, energy poverty and climate change — as pressing justice concerns.

- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center Newsletter

Oil, Prices, and Global Impact

Spring 2016

Call it the fall heard round the world.

The dramatic decline in oil prices—from over $100 a barrel in 2014 to below $30 this year—has been one of the most disruptive and least expected developments in global energy markets since the 2008 financial crisis.

With the continuation of high oil production and low prices, the Belfer Center’s Khalid Alsweilem, Calestous Juma, David Keith, Henry Lee, Leonardo Maugeri, Meghan O’Sullivan, and Robert Stavins offer insights, predictions, and recommendations based on their research and varied perspectives.

A Yazidi refugee family from Sinjar, Iraq arrives on the Greek island of Lesvos after travelling on a vessel from the Turkish coast. Dec 3, 2015.

AP Images/M. Muheisen

Policy Brief

"2015: The Year We Mistook Refugees for Invaders"

| January 4, 2016

"As 2015 comes to a close, the annual numbers of migrants smuggled to Greece and Italy and asylum claims lodged in Germany have passed a million, as well as the number of additional displacements produced this year by the conflict in Syria. Moreover, Europe’s Mediterranean shore has now the unchallenged title of the world’s most lethal border. Not only this. The migrant crisis is also putting to the test some of Europe’s most fundamental values, from the freedom of circulation within its territories, to international protection beyond..."