OPINION

CAIRO – Despite containing 60% of the world’s uncultivated arable land, Africa has been a net food importer for decades. According to the most recent estimates, food imports are the biggest budget item for many countries across the continent. Amid surging food prices and an appreciating US dollar, Africa’s food bill has …

LONDON – The dust has now settled after the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Egypt, but there are still many unanswered questions about how to finance emissions reductions and adaptation. The world will not avoid dangerous levels of climate change without a significant increase in investment in developing …

LONDON – Companies have long had to manage “key person risk,” even taking out insurance against the possibility of losing top executives through death, illness, or injury. But the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX, Meta’s plummeting share price, and the chaos at Twitter following its takeover by Elon Musk suggest that “key people” can pose …

Our senior civil servants from Ex1 to Ex3 have had a very tough and torrid time with the civil service reforms as all of them were put through a rigorous assessment process, and around half of them were managed out. The main lessons that our remaining senior civil servants should …

Dear Honorable MPs, There seems to be a lot of ‘confusion’ and also a great deal of hesitation on the Civil Liability Bill currently in the National Assembly. Please don’t be confused or hesitant la. The Bill just affirms that Bhutanese lives and health are not cheap. Currently, when a …

Earlier in April this year, the former Dzongda and JDWNRH President, Lhab Dorji, stabbed and assaulted an ACC Director while his family members assaulted an ACC Commissioner in the Supreme Court premises. The incident was a massive security failure and so it is good that following the incident the RBP …

I’m not a banker, but I’m surprised by the patent lack of understanding displayed by FM Lyonpo regarding the lifting of moratorium on CSI and BDBL.   I read recently a notice by the RMA clarifying the underlying reason and rationale for the imposition of the moratorium in the first place.  …

NEW YORK – In 1897, the American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst sent illustrator Frederic Remington to cover the Cuban War of Independence. When Remington relayed that “there will be no war,” Hearst allegedly cabled back: “You furnish the pictures, and I’ll furnish the war.” It’s an old story with a well-known moral: …

BOSTON – China highlights a long-debated question about economic development: Can a top-down autocracy outperform liberal market economies in terms of innovation and growth? Between 1980 and 2019, China’s average annual GDP growth rate was over 8% – faster than any Western economy – and in the 2000s, its economic trajectory exceeded …

NEW YORK – Economists are supposed to be good at understanding risk. Decision-making in the face of uncertainty, after all, is the discipline’s bread and butter. Yet at a time when real-world risks – geopolitical, macroeconomic, financial, public-health, and environmental – are piling up, many economists seem to be at …