Low-income countries and Sub-Saharan Africa are being left behind in global progress toward affordable healthy diets. Around 2.6 billion people – 32% of the global population – could not afford a healthy diet in 2024 The latest estimates of the Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet (CoAHD), published in the 2025 State of Food Security and Nutrition […]
Imagine a truckload of fresh mangoes grown by smallholder farmers in Sri Lanka. The fruit is ripe, fragrant, and ready for export. But instead of heading straight to market, it sits at the border waiting for inspections, test results, and paper certifications. Hours turn into days. By the time the mangoes reach their destination, some […]
The global development landscape is undergoing seismic shifts. Foreign aid, a critical lifeline for billions, is shrinking, after becoming fragmented at an alarming rate over the last two decades. At the same time, more than half of low-income countries are deep into or teetering on the brink of debt distress, with median public debt soaring from 20 […]
The US dollar has traditionally dominated the invoicing of international trade. But could other currencies one day replace it? This column examines a unique policy experiment in Argentina in 2023. Amid a severe dollar shortage, Argentina expanded its currency swap agreement with the People’s Bank of China. The share of imports from China invoiced in […]
Investment funds are important players in global financial markets. This column examines their behaviour and interaction with other investors during stress periods on European sovereign bond markets. It shows that investment funds are the only investor group that exhibits a distinctly procyclical behaviour by persistently selling euro periphery sovereign debt in response to euro disaster […]
A confluence of negative forces – some the result of self-inflicted wounds and rising uncertainty about US policies and others relating to global developments and geopolitics – is encroaching on the ability of the US to continue its current funding model, bringing into question the role of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. This […]
Over the past two decades, many developing countries have made remarkable progress in reducing poverty, expanding access to education and health care, and investing in infrastructure. These gains were the result of sound national policies and coordinated efforts by the international community, often financed through responsible borrowing. But the road ahead looks more precarious. Debt […]
The world is seriously off track to meet global nutrition targets. In fact, in some countries, statistics are moving in the wrong direction. Stunting remains a widespread problem, with nearly 148 million children affected, while at the other end of the spectrum, millions of adults are either struggling with obesity or suffering from non-communicable diseases (NCDs). […]
Geopolitical risk is a key concern for the euro area, yet most available measures reflect a US perspective. This column introduces a new indicator of geopolitical risk tailored specifically to the euro area, based entirely on newspaper coverage from local sources. The authors show that shocks to this index have significant recessionary and inflationary effects, […]
The World Bank’s metals and minerals price index edged up by 3 percent in May, partially recovering from an 8 percent plunge in April that had erased gains from early 2025. Metal prices have recently been shaped by rising global economic uncertainty and intensifying trade tensions. Prices are expected to decline through 2025 and 2026, […]
