Needed: New Thinking about Africa’s Debt Burden
New Thinking for a New World - a Tallberg Foundation Podcast
03/23/23
•32m
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Africa might finally be on the verge of realizing its enormous potential. A booming, young, optimistic population. Vast reserves of the metals needed to power the clean energy transition worldwide. Widespread popular demands to end corruption. A growing middle class. Taken together, these assets could produce the prosperity and peace Africans deserve.
What stands in the way?
One of the most important blockages is too much debt, compounded by too much history of mismanaging past borrowings. Of the 54 countries identified by the United Nations as having severe debt problems, 24 are located in Sub-Saharan Africa today. Many are heading towards default, restructuring or cancellation. Unfortunately, growth and development are likely to suffer as a result.
Bright Simons, a researcher and policy activist in Ghana, thinks it's time to do something different. **He recently published an article in The Financial Times arguing that debt cancellation is not the solution Africa needs now. **Some critics responded that cancellation is as urgent today as it was 20 years ago. But, is rinse and repeat any more likely to work this time?
Previous Episode
Is Israel Heading Over a Cliff?
March 16, 2023
•31m
Israel seems to be on the verge of exploding. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s pursuit of radical judicial reform has been met with massive and growing street demonstrations. The country’s President, Isaac Herzog, has publicly warned of a political "point of no return" with potentially disastrous consequences for Israeli society. Meanwhile, violence between Israelis and Palestinians is soaring, raising the possibility of another intifada and adding to the sense of looming disaster.
Indeed, a recent poll suggested that one-third of Israelis believe the country is heading towards civil war, including 80% of the protesters who oppose Netanyahu’s reforms.
Neri Zilber is a journalist and analyst who focus on Israel's - and more generally Middle Eastern - politics and culture. He is deeply knowledgeable, widely published and moves regularly between Tel Aviv and Washington. Listen as he joins host Alan Stoga for a New Thinking for a New World conversation on a situation that seems destined to go from bad to worse.
What do you think?
Next Episode
Is This Any Way to Run a War?
March 30, 2023
•34m
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has settled into a grueling, vicious war of attrition with no end in sight. However, there is a growing consensus in NATO capitals that a long war not only favors Russia but has the potential for nasty, unintended consequences. What does not seem to exist is a strategy to do something about it.
Lots of rhetoric: “Ukraine will win” and “we will do what it takes” as well as tactics galore. Send more weapons; impose more sanctions; threaten the Chinese; cheer Zelensky's Churchillian speeches. But define an endgame or a strategy to get there? Missing in action. Which leaves Russia—and, perhaps, its Chinese sponsor—in the driver's seat.
Anna Wieslander has had the temerity to point out that the emperor has no clothes or more to the point, that the West has no strategy. She is a Swedish defense and security expert, Director for Northern Europe at the Atlantic Council, and Chairman of the board of the Stockholm-based Institute for Security and Development Policy. Listen as host Alan Stoga discusses with her what it might take to end this war, one way or the other.
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