With the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), world leaders made a bold pledge in 2015 to leave no one behind on the path of development by 2030. Half-way to the target date, some 22 countries…

Samuel Kofi Tetteh Baah, Christoph Lakner, Umar Serajuddin |

Why are fertilizer prices so high, and what can countries in Central America do about this?

Luis Flores, Viviana Perego, Diego Arias |

Like many countries around the world Lesotho has been negatively affected by the war in Ukraine. The situation has been worsened by hindered food imports due to the pandemic as well as weak…

Mantsebeng Suzan Maepe, Elita Banda |

Costa Rica lost the momentum for poverty reduction towards the end of the twentieth century. This makes Costa Rica an outlier in a region that conti…

Jacobus de Hoop, Agustin Arakaki |

Central America and the Dominican Republic have a good track record of economic growth. Between 1991 and 2019, Central America grew by an average of 4.5% per year, and the Dominican Republic by an…

Michel Kerf |

Can prepaid systems become an instrument to improve access and quality of water services to poor people in African cities and towns? Or does prepayment deny poor people more access to water? Do…

Chris Heymans, Kathy Eales |

When economists think about price shocks, they consider how a change in price will affect the supply and demand of a product. But when that product is human – i.e., a worker – interpreting the…

Elizabeth Ruppert Bulmer, Claire H. Hollweg |

Dear Africa Can readers, we’ve heard from many of you since our former Africa Chief Economist Shanta Devarajan left the region for a new Bank position that you want Africa Can to continue…

Francisco Ferreira |

It is July 2012 and cattle farmers in Nicaragua are worried because Guatemala has enacted a series of laws that restrict beef trade. These so-called “non-tariff measures, ” or NTMs, require that…

Jose Daniel Reyes, Maria Jose Gonzalez Rivas |