Development

More than a generous immigration policy, Africa desperately needs help holding on to its precious human capital.

There is a market for microfinance in the United States but a change in regulatory framework is needed for the sector to thrive.

Mozambique is at a moment of peak international leverage, but faces significant domestic challenges. 

In the wake of President Trump’s combative approach to trade, and with major negotiations stalled, the future of global trade rules is in doubt.  

In an op-ed in the Financial Times, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari highlighted the importance of development in curbing terrorism, a welcome departure from conversations focusing singularly on military might.

Regardless of its strategic intent, the Build Back Better World initiative could be a huge win for global welfare, sustainable development, and multilateralism.

Highlighting the Belt and Road Initiative’s problematic labor practices, and pressing China to tighten regulations further, is an important step toward improving the human outcomes associated with BRI.

Nigeria's Vice President Yemi Osinbajo addressed on February 23 a UN Food Systems Summit organized by the Nigerian government in Abuja, the national capital. He was blunt about the country's food insecurity problem. He noted that Nigeria's population is growing much faster than the economy, limiting its ability to build resilient, sustainable food systems. The conference considered a variety of possible approaches to increasing food production. Their relevance to Nigeria's realities remains to be seen. But Osinbajo addressed an important driver of food insecurity—Nigeria's rapidly growing population. Already an estimated 219 million, the population is projected to reach more than 400 million by mid-century, by which time it would displace the United States as the third largest country in the world. Nigeria is also, at the same time, quickly urbanizing. More than half of the population already lives in cities, most of which lack the necessary infrastructure to accommodate their residents. Nigerians often cite an abundance of good farmland and lament a lack of investment in agriculture. Certainly, agricultural investment has suffered from the diversion of investment capital to the oil industry and also from misguided public policy in the years before and after independence. But the abundance of good agricultural land is overstated: desertification affects as much as 60 percent of Nigeria's land, with drought and climate change exacerbating land deterioration. The Sahara Desert is creeping south while a rising Gulf of Guinea, coupled with a sinking continental shelf, threatens coastal areas. If increasing agricultural production will be a challenge, so, too, is reducing the birthrate. The statistically average Nigerian woman bears more than five children. But the rate varies across ethnic, religious, and local government lines, with a high of 7.3 births per woman in Katsina State and a low of 3.4 births per woman in Lagos State. In addition, among many “Big Men,” fathering large numbers of children is viewed as a dimension of their power. The government has tried to impose a population policy but failed to achieve its aims due to weak political will and hard-to-overcome cultural factors favoring a high birth rate. Nevertheless, Osinbajo's straight talk about an awkward issue is to be commended. In 2022, the ruling party is likely to nominate a southern Christian for the presidency, preserving the alternation of the office between the Muslim north and the Christian south. Osinbajo is a Christian, a Pentecostal preacher. However, he has described himself as "on loan" from the church to the government, and it is unclear that he will actively seek the nomination.

Beyond the immediate, detrimental effects for Tanzanians’ health, President John Magufuli’s aggressive COVID denialism is likely to dent the country’s economic prospects.

When Robert Azevedo stepped down last year from the post of director general of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the trade body’s top leadership position, former Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala quickly became the universal favorite to land the job—except for among members of the Trump administration. Because the WTO operates on the basis of consensus, the Trump administration's opposition effectively vetoed her in favor of the current South Korean Trade Minister Yoo Myung-hee. In an interview with the Financial Times, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer outlined the Trump administration’s objection, claiming that Okonjo-Iweala is “somebody from the World Bank who does development” with no “real trade experience.” (Okonjo-Iweala previously held the number-two position at the Bank.) However, Lighthizer’s comments are not altogether credible, given Okonjo-Iweala’s experience with trade issues as finance minister. Nevertheless, the WTO and its membership could read a calendar as well as anyone else, and so the debate over the next director general remained frozen until after the U.S. presidential elections. After consulting with U.S. officials earlier this month, Myung-hee withdrew her candidacy. The Biden administration then formally expressed its support for Okonjo-Iweala. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is, among other things, board chair of Gavi, a global alliance to ensure low-income countries can access life-saving vaccines. She has already signaled that high on her agenda at the WTO will be to promote and facilitate the enhanced distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and protective equipment. In traditional and social media, the focus on Okonjo-Iweala has been that she is the first woman and the first African to head the WTO. As such she is a symbol, and symbols are important: many Africans see her as validating the competency and leadership skills of African women.  With the popular focus on Okonjo-Iweala’s gender, race, and country of origin, overlooked could be her competency and expertise, regularly demonstrated during her career at the World Bank and twice as Nigeria's finance minister. Demonstrated competency accounts, at least in part, for her strong support from the beginning within the WTO.  Okonjo-Iweala self-identifies as foremost a Nigerian, and in public always wears Igbo dress. She worked as a cook for rebels on the frontlines in the 1967–70 civil war between Nigeria and Igbo-dominated Biafra. That said, her higher education was at Harvard and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She worked in Washington, D.C. for twenty-five years. Her husband is a physician practicing in Washington, D.C. She became an American citizen in 2019.

Fola Aina is a doctoral fellow at King’s College London. He is an international security analyst with expertise on peace and security in the Lake Chad region and the Sahel region. Nolan Quinn contributed to this piece. Insecurity in northwest Nigeria and much of Sahelian West Africa has its roots in tensions and competition over resources. Oft cited are shortages of land and water, driven by environmental degradation and climate change as well as rapid population growth. However, conflicts in the region over access to minerals—especially gold—are also heating up. Moreover, illicit mining causes environmental damage, thus exacerbating land and water shortages. The mining sector in Nigeria benefits from substantial untapped solid mineral deposits, including gold and iron ore. (Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, the governor of Kaduna State, has claimed that a single local government area in his state has more gold than South Africa.) Nigerian federal and state governments are in the process of exploring how to develop the minerals industry, which, at present, accounts for less than 1 percent [PDF] of the country’s GDP. A major impediment is the predominance of artisanal and small-scale miners, who produce an estimated 80 to 85 percent [PDF] of Nigeria’s mining output. This deprives the government of a potentially huge source of revenue: data from UN Comtrade reveals that between 2012 and 2018, about ninety-seven tonnes of gold worth over $3 billion was illegally smuggled out of Nigeria. Drawbacks from artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) in Nigeria go beyond lost revenue. Between 2010 and 2013, over seven hundred children died [PDF] in Zamfara State due to lead poisoning associated with ASGM activities. ASGM also contaminates surrounding land, water, and air with other toxic chemicals such as mercury. Perhaps most damaging is ASGM in northwest Nigeria’s apparent links to criminal consortia. The region’s gold-tinged cash windfall has established new centers of power beyond the state’s control—a retired military officer told the International Crisis Group that ASGM activities had created “a fiefdom of deadly gangs”— leading to a destabilizing wave of rural banditry and criminality. The governments of Zamfara State—the epicenter of ASGM-related violence—and Katsina State have cautioned that proceeds from the illegal sale of gold are funding weapons purchases by armed groups. In an attempt to sever what Zamfara’s police chief called a “strong and glaring nexus between the activities of armed bandits and illicit miners,” in April 2019 the federal government suspended mining in Zamfara State. The ban, which was largely ineffective, was lifted early last year. Numerous military and police operations in the northwest have also failed to restore security. Zamfara’s government has now resorted to offering repentant bandits two cows for every AK-47 they surrender as part of a peace initiative. A nascent, alternative countermeasure has been the 2019 launch of the Presidential Gold Mining Development Initiative (PAGMI). An ambitious initiative, PAGMI is currently in early stages of implementation, with Kebbi and Osun States—the latter located in Nigeria’s southwest—serving as “pilots” before the program scales up to Kaduna, Zamfara, and Niger States. (Niger State borders to the south the North West geopolitical zone.) The initiative aims to create over 500,000 new mining and formalized jobs and register thousands of artisanal miners in the national identity management system. By July of last year, about 20,000 miners had already been registered in Kebbi and Osun States. PAGMI allows artisanal miners to sell gold through the National Gold Purchase Program, which will be able to supply the Central Bank of Nigeria with much-needed foreign reserves. PAGMI’s success—or lack thereof—will come down to implementation. When villagers who received food handouts during COVID-19 lockdowns were attacked by bandits, it highlighted the challenges the government faces in providing services in the northwest. The government will need to enhance security to allow it to interact with locals hoping to benefit from formalized ASGM. But a strategy to restore security that focuses on use of force will continue to fail. A well implemented, multilayered strategy, meanwhile, could herald the gradual restoration of peace and security in the troubled region—a necessity for kickstarting development in the face of resource shortages. Prioritizing cooperation between the federal and state governments in the affected region is important yet insufficient. A more effective approach would empower local actors such as traditional rulers, district heads, women, and youth, all of whom have exhibited commendable resilience amid widespread insecurity, by providing resources to address social ills and establishing lines of communication for better information sharing. With lives and livelihoods at stake, time is a luxury the region does not have. A better approach is needed now.

This post is part of the Council on Foreign Relations’ blog series on human trafficking, in which CFR fellows and other leading experts assess new approaches to improve U.S. and global efforts to curb trafficking and modern slavery. This post was authored by James Cockayne.

This post is part of the Council on Foreign Relations’ blog series on human trafficking, in which CFR fellows and other leading experts assess new approaches to improve U.S. and global efforts to curb trafficking and modern slavery. This post was authored by Sarah E. Mendelson.