Opinion

There are more than 390,000 identified plant species in the world, but just three – rice, maize, and wheat – account for roughly 60% of the plant-based calories in our diets. The dominance of these three grains is largely the result of major technological breakthroughs, particularly the development of high-yielding varieties (HYVs) of rice and wheat during the Green Revolution of the 1960s.These innovations have yielded enormous benefits, significantly increasing access to staple foods and rescuing hundreds of millions of people from hunger. But ramped-up agricultural output has also brought a host of other problems, particularly when it comes to the cultivation process. Notably, the enhanced productivity of HYV seeds depends heavily on the availability of reliable irrigation and the application of various chemical inputs, especially fertilisers and pesticides.Consequently, the adoption of HYV seeds has led to the overuse of canal irrigation and subsequent waterlogging problems, forcing farmers to rely on groundwater irrigation, even in semi-arid regions. Similarly, the use of nitrogen-based fertilisers has dramatically increased following the shift to HYV-based agriculture.The inherent vulnerability of these varieties to pests, together with the tendency to cultivate them in monocultures, has led to frequent infestations and the widespread, often indiscriminate use of chemical pesticides, resulting in residual toxicity in plants and grains. With pests developing resistance to these chemicals, it became necessary to seek out new technological solutions, including the development of genetically modified crops designed to be naturally resistant to (at least some) pests.In addition, although these technologies are scale-neutral, access to the required inputs and markets typically is not. As a result, large farmers benefited disproportionately, adding to agrarian inequality.As if these challenges were not daunting enough, experts are growing increasingly concerned about the deteriorating nutritional content of high-yield crops. For example, a recent study suggests that although the Green Revolution has helped India achieve food self-sufficiency, it has undermined the country’s nutritional security.By analysing the quality and potential toxicity of roughly 1,500 rice and wheat varieties developed and introduced in India from the 1960s to 2018, the authors trace the long-term effects of HYV-focused breeding programmes. These programmes, they find, have modified the grains’ nutritional makeup, resulting in significantly reduced dietary benefits and a higher concentration of toxins.In short, although enhancing nutrition was the primary goal of cultivating these grains, the emphasis on increasing yields has significantly compromised their nutritional value. Notably, the levels of vital nutrients like zinc and iron in rice and wheat, India’s two most important food staples, have declined markedly. Specifically, rice experienced a 33% drop in zinc and a 27% decrease in iron, while the zinc and iron content in wheat fell by 30% and 19%, respectively. Even worse, arsenic levels in rice surged by 1,493%.These findings have far-reaching health implications for those who consume these grains. In particular, the authors highlight “strong evidence” that “oral ingestion of metal toxicants” could lead to serious health problems like “lung cancers or chronic respiratory diseases, cardiovascular diseases, hyperkeratosis, renal toxicity, and impaired bone calcification.” Increased consumption of staples like rice and wheat – the goal of the Green Revolution – could end up exacerbating India’s already significant disease burden.This is also true for many other countries that have relied heavily on HYVs to boost yields and increase the production of staple crops. For example, the recently rebranded Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa continues to advocate an outdated industrial model of agriculture that has failed to deliver the expected nutritional benefits.As previously argued, nutrition should not be viewed only in terms of total calorie consumption based on mono-cropped cultivation. While the superior nutritional value of a diverse diet is now widely recognised, achieving it requires not just technological innovation but also a shift in focus toward cultivating a variety of crops best suited to the local environment and climate. In addition to improving nutritional outcomes, this approach promotes sustainability by reducing carbon dioxide emissions across the food’s entire life cycle.India’s experience provides a cautionary tale for developing countries. In India and elsewhere, it is becoming increasingly clear that adopting agroecological practices based on smallholder farming is the most effective way to develop food systems that are both sustainable and nutritionally rich. But this requires moving away from the predatory commercialisation of agriculture, which primarily serves the interests of large agribusinesses, toward a model that benefits the actual producers and consumers of food.

Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine is about to enter its third year. There is much to feel good about, but there are also grounds for worry. In short, it is time to take stock.What Ukraine and its Western backers have accomplished in the wake of Russia’s February 2022 invasion is extraordinary. Russia, a nuclear-armed power with three and a half times the population of Ukraine, ten times the GDP, and a military with many times the personnel and equipment, has been fought to something close to a draw. Ukraine controls some 80% of its territory, much as it did two years ago.Russian President Vladimir Putin obviously calculated that his war of conquest would resemble his previous invasion of Ukraine in 2014, when Russian forces swept in and quickly seized Crimea and much of the eastern Donbas region. He saw Ukraine, Europe, and the United States as weak and divided. He also believed his generals when they promised that Russia’s military was strong and would overwhelm whatever resistance Ukraine could muster.All these assumptions have been proved wrong. But there is reason to be concerned nonetheless.Ukraine’s highly anticipated counter-offensive, designed to liberate territory and deliver a battlefield win or at least momentum that would set the stage for promising diplomacy, was largely rebuffed. Russia has learned to live with Western economic sanctions and has largely rerouted vital energy exports to China and India.Western military sanctions have likewise been evaded: Russia has continued to sell weapons to India and others and buy them from North Korea and Iran. It has also been able to purchase ostensibly civilian technology and products that can be repurposed for military use. It has expanded its defence industrial base and now has a sizeable advantage over Ukraine in the quantity of artillery and ammunition that it can deliver to the battlefield.Russia shows few signs of exhaustion. Despite the extraordinary human toll of the war, estimated to be more than “300,000 Russian troops killed or injured”, Putin’s control of the media and public narrative has allowed the Kremlin to minimise dissent and persuade many Russians that their country is the victim rather than an aggressor.Meanwhile, Ukraine is showing signs of political division. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky just fired his top general. More important, Ukraine is struggling on the battlefield, largely owing to Republicans in the US Congress blocking a $60bn military assistance package. Republican opposition appears to reflect a mixture of resurgent isolationism, sympathy for the authoritarianism of Putin, and a partisan desire not to hand President Joe Biden a political victory before the presidential election in November.Ideally, Biden will be able to convince enough Republicans to work with him and fellow Democrats to approve a new tranche of assistance, which is in America’s strategic interest. But this outcome cannot be counted on, despite growing evidence that Ukraine is running short of arms and ammunition and, as a result, experiencing mounting difficulty in standing up to Russian military pressure.This raises the question: How might Ukraine and its friends in Europe and elsewhere fill at least some of the void left by a US no longer prepared to offer significant levels of assistance?Europe has already agreed to provide Ukraine with more than $50bn in new economic aid; together with others (such as South Korea and possibly Japan), a co-ordinated plan is also needed to provide Ukraine with arms and ammunition so it can better defend itself and strike important Russian military targets. At the same time, Ukraine’s friends must help it reconstitute and expand its arms industry, so that it becomes less dependent on the ability and willingness of others to provide the resources the war effort requires.At the same time, Ukraine can reduce its resource needs and save lives by adopting a largely defensive military strategy. Protecting and preserving the 80% of the country Ukraine now controls is feasible and essential. Ukraine would not be giving up anything by embracing such a posture, given that military liberation of Crimea, Donbas, and other Russian-occupied areas is not in the cards, at least in the short term. And it can continue to seek full territorial restitution at the negotiating table if and when serious talks commence.If the provision of arms will determine how Ukraine fares this year, the US presidential and congressional elections in November will go a long way toward determining how it fares in 2025 and beyond. If Biden is re-elected, and if the US Senate flips to Republican control, as many expect, but the Democrats retake the House of Representatives, then the stage will be set for renewed US economic and military aid and possibly a tie between Ukraine and Nato. This would disabuse Putin of the view that time is on his side, in turn increasing the odds that diplomacy would come to the fore.If, however, former President Donald Trump wins and the Republicans maintain control of the House of Representatives, Ukraine will face a far more difficult future. The burden of Ukraine’s security would fall even more on itself and its friends in Europe and Asia. If they prove willing and able to fill much of the gap left by a withdrawal of US support, one could envision a prolonged stalemate on the battlefield followed by constructive diplomacy. If not, Putin would be likely to press his advantage on the battlefield and come to the negotiating table only to impose the outcome he has sought from the beginning.The difference between these two futures is stark. The stakes for Ukraine, for Europe, and for the world are enormous. Chinese President Xi Jinping, with his own designs on Taiwan, is watching with keen interest how this plays out. So, too, is Iran. If the US proves unwilling to meet its obligations and uphold the rule of international law that territory may not be acquired by force, we are looking at a future far more violent and dangerous than the past.— Project SyndicateRichard Haass, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, is a senior counselor at Centerview Partners and the author of The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens and the weekly newsletter Home & Away.

Commercial real estate markets have been in a sharp decline across the world as the spike in interest rates compounded challenges from the shift to work-from-home and changing retail behaviour.Back when money in the bank was yielding almost nothing, commercial real estate became a haven for investors in need of reliable returns. As central banks jacked up interest rates, a lot of properties suddenly looked like poor investments.The troubles were compounded by the rise of home working and online shopping, which sapped demand for big, centralised workplaces and retail spaces.The MSCI World Real Estate Index fell by 18% between the start of 2022 and the end of 2023, signalling where equity investors believed property values were headed.About $1.2tn of US commercial real estate debt was “potentially troubled” because of the slump in prices, advisory firm Newmark Group said in August.US regional lenders were particularly exposed, and stood to be hurt harder than their larger peers, because they lacked the large credit card portfolios or investment banking businesses that could insulate them.In Europe cracks began to show as the web of companies in Signa Group imploded, threatening credit losses for dozens of lenders.Some Asian banks were also feeling the pain, with Japan’s Aozora Bank warning investors it would report its first loss in 15 years because of bad loans tied to US property.The depressed prices make it harder for the industry to refinance the $2.2tn of US and European commercial property loans due to mature by the end of 2025, according to a Bloomberg report.Office buildings were the biggest casualties as post-Covid changes in working patterns and poor energy efficiency combined with rising interest rates to crush values.Rising interest rates had a bigger impact on Europe’s property prices as yields there were lower than in the US when central banks began their hiking cycle. However, valuations in the US fell further as it had a larger stock of new and empty buildings.At the end of the third quarter of 2023, more than a fifth of office space lay empty in several major US cities.The European Central Bank is concerned that banks in the region have been too slow to mark down the value of loans and the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority is to review valuations in private markets, including real estate.Also, a new batch of overseas assets acquired in a decade-long Chinese expansion spree are starting to hit the market as landlords and developers decide they want cash now to shore up domestic operations and pay off debts — even if that means taking a financial hit.There are some green shoots of hope, though.But Recovery is expected to be patchy, with investors predicted to favour Europe over the US.Capital Economics, the research consultancy, forecasts that values of commercial buildings in the UK will rise 1.1% this year after dropping 4% in 2023.Eurozone real estate prices should turn positive in 2025, Capital Economics forecasts, while the US will lag substantially with a 10% drop this year and no recovery until 2026.Completed commercial property deals globally sank to the lowest level in a decade last year, with owners unwilling to sell buildings at steep discounts, according to Bloomberg.The worldwide slump triggered by borrowing-cost hikes has already wiped more than $1tn off office property values alone, according to some estimates.But the total damage is still unknown because so few assets have been sold, leaving appraisers with little recent data to go on.

The relations between Qatar and Kazakhstan have been witnessing steady growth across political, economic, investment, and social spheres, positioning Qatar as one of Kazakhstan’s key partners in the Middle East.The state visit by Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to Qatar marks a new milestone in the development of the distinguished historical relations between the two friendly countries, paving the way for broader horizons. Qatar views Kazakhstan as a promising strategic partner, given the significant economic potential of both countries, enabling them to enhance co-operation across various sectors.His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev will discuss the distinguished relations between the two countries and the prospects for developing and strengthening them in various fields in a way that achieves the interests of the two countries and their friendly peoples as well as exchanging views on the most prominent regional and international issues and developments of mutual interest.The two countries are keen to move bilateral relations to promising horizons of co-operation and partnership by increasing the volume of trade exchange and establishing further joint investment projects in all sectors.Diplomatic relations between Qatar and Kazakhstan were first established on July 1, 1993. Qatar’s embassy in Astana opened its doors in May 2008, whereas Kazakhstan’s embassy in Doha opened its doors in May 2007.Last year, the two countries celebrated the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between them.Relations have been strengthened through a series of mutual visits at the level of leaders and senior officials from both countries. His Highness the Amir made three visits to Kazakhstan, the first of which was in January 2014. He also visited in October 2022 to participate in the 6th Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia.The Amir was awarded by the Kazakh president the Order of the Golden Eagle or “Altyn Qyran”, the highest order of Kazakhstan that is awarded to heads of friendly countries.The Amir also visited Kazakhstan in June 2023 to participate in the Astana International Forum.President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev visited Doha to participate in the Qatar Economic Forum in June 2022, while his predecessor former president Nursultan Nazarbayev visited Qatar in October 2015.His Highness the Father Amir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani was the first Arab leader to visit Astana after its selection as the capital of Kazakhstan in April 1999.Qatari-Kazakh relations are set on a number of agreements and memorandums of co-operation in many fields, including the agreement on the encouragement and mutual protection of investments, in addition to MoU for co-operation in the field of trade and public health, and the training of diplomatic cadres between the two countries.Over the course of nearly three decades of close relations, the two countries have witnessed notable co-operation development, most notably the establishment of the Qatar-Kazakhstan Joint Higher Committee, which had held six successive sessions, the last of which was in Doha last October during which the two sides agreed to take the necessary steps to move ahead towards commercial, investment and industrial co-operation with the aim of increasing the volume of trade exchange and facilitating the flow of goods, services and investments between the two countries.Both countries are well located in terms of investment and business climate, proven by many international and local rating agencies, which gives businessmen in both countries the opportunity to enhance co-operation in various fields, especially agriculture, food security supply, education, healthcare, energy, renewable energy, mining, and other vital fields.Qatari investors are interested in investing in Kazakhstan as it is a promising destination for foreign investments due to wide investment opportunities.The Qatar Chamber encourages Qatari businessmen to explore the investment opportunities available in the country. A group of Qatari companies is also looking into the possibility of participating in Kazakhstan’s Comprehensive Privatisation Plan as well as benefiting from the investment projects proposed in the sectors of agricultural, mining, petrochemical industry, tourism infrastructure, livestock breeding, dairy production, and other vital projects.Kazakhstan is looking forward to benefiting from the great experience that Qatar possesses, especially in liquefied natural gas (LNG) and petrochemical production. Qatar is one of the largest exporters of LNG in the world and Kazakhstan is taking many measures that serve to enhance economic diversification and protect foreign investment. It also seeks to be a commercial, financial, educational, health, and tourism centre, as well as excellence in food production.Qatar has also pumped investments into Kazakhstan’s economy, especially in the field of infrastructure.Qatar is also considered one of the countries that provide the most aid to Kazakhstan. Among the most prominent projects it established are the opening of the Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani School in September 2018, the maternity hospital project in the Almaty region, southern Kazakhstan, and the construction of one of the largest mosques in the capital the Nur-Astana Mosque, renamed later to Abu Nasr Al Farabi Mosque. The mosque was built based on the initiative of the His Highness the Father Amir during his first visit to Kazakhstan in 1999.The tourism movement between the two countries is witnessing continuous growth, with the launch of the direct flight between the two countries by Qatar Airways in November 2021, which will contribute to the economy and trade movement between the two countries in the future. (QNA)

Ooredoo and Save the Dream convened at Expo 2023 Doha the forum “The GameChangers: developing skills and promoting positive change through sport and its values”.More than 200 youth leaders, many of them mobilised by the Qatar Youth Power association, had the opportunity to meet and learn from high-level representatives from leading organisations based in Doha such as Generation Amazing, Aspire Academy, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Josoor Institute, Qatar Foundation, the Unesco Office for the Gulf States and Yemen in Doha, and the EU Delegation to Qatar, and be inspired by the stories and experiences of successful athletes like Nada Mohamed Wafa, Dual Olympian, London 2012 and Rio 2016; Ali Alobaidli, Qatar’s first World snooker champion; Mariam Farid, Runner, Member of Qatar’s National Team of Athletics; and Wejdan Majed al-Malki, Athlete, CDI5* Grand Prix Dressage.The forum also featured Save the Dream ambassadors Honey Thaljieh, Public Relations Manager at FIFA, and President of the Qatar Boxing and Wrestling Federation (QBWF) Sheikh Fahad al-Thani.Held on the eve of the Qatar National Sport Day, the event provided a unique opportunity for young people to understand the role of sport with regard to the development of transversal skills, promotion of societal values and its contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).Participants learnt about both volunteering and working opportunities in the sport industry and were engaged in a vibrant conversation on how to use the educational values of sport to build bridges and promote positive change.The dialogue was structured around best practices, storytelling, and research findings related to youth empowerment through sports. Athletes shared their own experiences, reflecting on their journey of growth and success that defined their career and personal life.Director of Public Relations at Ooredoo Qatar, Sabah Rabiah al-Kuwari, commented: “This event has highlighted the role of sport as a universal language of empowerment and positive change. Through our collaboration with Save the Dream and the involvement of Qatar’s vibrant youth and sporting community, we have helped to spotlight the invaluable lessons sport teaches us resilience, teamwork, and the pursuit of excellence. As Ooredoo continues to champion these values, we remain committed to leveraging our platform to nurture young leaders and advocate for sport’s educational and societal benefits.”CEO at Save the Dream Massimiliano Montanari said: “It was a very good day. First of all, we spent quality time with most of our key partners in Qatar. And it was great to make new friends, meeting amazing athletes and so many youth leaders. I hope we were able to give them some useful information, tips, and a bit of inspiration.”Director of the Unesco Office for the Gulf States and Yemen, Salah Khaled, recalled that “every human being has a fundamental right of access to physical education and sport, which are essential for the full development of his personality” as stated in the International Charter of Physical Education and Sport (1978). Through its Fit for Life Flagship project, Unesco is advancing the sports agenda globally. Fit for Life is a framework for public and private smart investments in the transformative power of sport, to promote its tenfold human, social inclusion, educational, health and equity benefits.Deputy Head of Mission at the Delegation of the European Union to Qatar Dr Angelos Lenos said: “We were extremely glad to be part of this inspiring event, which afforded us the opportunity to engage again with some of our local partners in sports diplomacy, and to reaffirm our strong commitment to collaborating with the local community in advancing the values championed by our sports diplomacy activities.”Founder of Qatar Youth Power Natalie Magness said: “This event was testament to the power sport holds in bringing people together, transcending age, national, cultural, language, political and religious borders to unite and empower. The insights shared by the incredible speakers and the thought-provoking conversations were truly inspiring and a reminder that our world leaders must place a stronger emphasis on sport in alleviating conflict and peace-building as well as including youth in the processes and decision-making in these efforts. I am certain that the youth of Qatar have been empowered and inspired to get more involved in sport, from active participation to championing the values sport espouses such as compassion, team work, and equality.”Executive Director of Generation Amazing Foundation Nasser Alkhori stated: “At the ‘The GameChangers’ forum, alongside Ooredoo and Save the Dream, we delved into the transformative power of sport, a cornerstone of Generation Amazing’s mission for youth empowerment. The forum was a vibrant showcase of how sport influences societal values and contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals. Witnessing the passion of over 200 youth leaders and absorbing the powerful narratives of accomplished athletes only deepened our resolve. It’s clear: sport is more than just a game; it’s a dynamic force for fostering positive change, unity, and social development. Our collaboration at this event has further solidified our dedication to harnessing sport as a catalyst for empowering the next generation and driving meaningful societal progress.”Director of Football Performance & Science, Aspire Academy, Valter Di Salvo said: “The forum showcased the pivotal role of sport. It can help young people grow in many ways. We talked about how sports teach important skills, build strong characters, and promote good values. It wasn’t just about celebrating sports skills; it was about showing how our youth are growing into people who can make a positive difference in the world championing societal values.”

In 2017, African Union heads of state pledged to deploy 2mn community health workers (CHWs), recognising their role in advancing health for all. Seven years on, as African leaders prepare to convene in Addis Ababa, we must reflect on our progress. By 2030, Africa will face a shortage of 6mn health workers, making CHWs a key component and a fast solution to bridging the continent’s health needs. Developing resilient community health-worker programmes across Africa has never been more urgent.We have witnessed how disease outbreaks can plunge a country into darkness – and how the power of CHWs can help pull it back into the light. As Liberia’s experience shows, CHWs need adequate resources and financial support to be effective. In the early 2010s, Liberia’s efforts to offer primary healthcare in remote areas faced significant challenges. There was a shortage of health workers, and where CHWs were deployed, they were under-compensated and did not have the necessary equipment or training to deliver the essential care that was so desperately needed. As a result, different community health initiatives run in parallel by the government and other stakeholders failed to have a significant impact on patients – a common problem in many African countries.In 2016, the Liberian government launched the National Community Health Assistant Programme to address these issues and apply the lessons learned from the Ebola outbreak that began in 2014. With proper supervision, adequate salaries, and enough supplies to reach every household in their communities, CHWs were empowered to provide standardised, integrated primary healthcare services. The results speak for themselves. Liberia’s 4,000 CHWs now deliver nearly 50% of all reported malaria treatments for children under five and consistently provide access to health services, even during the Covid-19 pandemic.Programmes that take a similar approach have yielded positive results in other African countries. Since Ethiopia implemented its community-based Health Extension Programme, which has deployed 40,000 community health workers, vaccination rates have tripled and child mortality has fallen dramatically. The experience of these and other countries shows that supporting CHWs and integrating them into national health systems can save lives and create livelihoods. It should serve as a guide for expanding community health services across the continent.A resilient community health workforce is key to overcoming existing and future health challenges in Africa, which currently range from alarming maternal and infant mortality rates to a high burden of communicable diseases. Equally worrying is the escalating climate crisis, which has underscored the urgency of improving access to care and building health systems that can adapt to a changing environment. Increasing the number of CHWs, and ensuring that they have adequate resources, is one of the most cost-effective and sustainable ways to achieve these goals.Unfortunately, a daunting $4.4bn annual funding gap – compounded by fragmented financial flows – continues to slow our progress toward a healthier, safer, and more prosperous Africa. The solution is to adopt a “one plan, one budget, one report” framework, like that used by Liberia and Ethiopia. With this approach, governments outline their strategies for national community health programmes, and partners co-ordinate resources and technical expertise to reduce the bureaucratic burden.To that end, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and partners launched the first-ever continental coordination mechanism for community health in November 2023. Encouraging coordination among stakeholders will enable African countries to build effective and efficient CHW programmes to tackle the challenges of high-burden communicable diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, and non-communicable diseases, as well as to respond better to emergencies, including epidemics and climate shocks.The Africa CDC remains firmly committed to strengthening the community health workforce, which dovetails with the New Public Health Order – the organisation’s health-security agenda – and the AU’s initiative to deploy two million additional CHWs on the continent. As part of this effort, the Africa CDC has collaborated with Africa Frontline First to mobilise the financing needed to professionalise CHWs. Last year’s Reaching the Last Mile Forum in Dubai was a success on that front: 12 partners committed to accelerating support for professional CHWs. This announcement also included $900mn from the Global Fund over the next three years, 74% of which is earmarked for Africa.The private and public actors in Africa must take coordinated action. As heads of state convene for the AU Summit, we urge them to make the development of an integrated professional community health workforce a top priority.

The rapid advance of artificial intelligence evokes both wonder and dread. Many regard AI as an object of marvel and awe (a Stupor Mundi, to borrow a Latin phrase), while others believe it can be a benevolent saviour (a Salvator Mundi). Regardless of whether AI is seen as miraculous or merely helpful, the question remains: How can we ensure that its benefits are available to everyone?To answer this question, we need a nuanced understanding of AI. That means rejecting several simplistic narratives: functionalism, which says humans should adapt and augment themselves to keep up with technological progress; sensationalism, which depicts AI as an existential threat; cynicism, which seeks to exploit AI for profit; and fatalism, which implies a resigned acceptance of AI’s inevitable rise.What these scenarios overlook is that the future is still ours to shape. Adopting the verum-factum principle – knowing through making – is crucial to developing a more profound understanding of AI’s capabilities and implications.To prevent a minority from co-opting AI’s transformative potential, it must be democratised. Equitable access is the key to ensuring that the benefits of technological progress are broadly shared, and that AI serves as a unifying force, rather than exacerbating the divisions within our fragile societies.The potential benefits are enormous. In the 1990s, Joseph Stiglitz observed that “a child anywhere in the world who has access to the Internet has access to more knowledge than a child in the best schools of the industrial countries did a quarter-century ago.” By democratising access to AI, we can empower today’s children to engage with humanity’s brightest minds in a way that caters to their individual needs.But achieving this depends on how we shape the narrative surrounding AI’s adoption and future impact. Instead of making lofty promises like “AI will solve world hunger,” we should focus on its ability to bring about incremental yet meaningful improvements in people’s daily lives.In this regard, the technology’s rapidly expanding capabilities and declining costs create new opportunities for smaller-scale models and enable individual users to personalise AI solutions, mirroring the Internet’s freewheeling, creative early days. Just two years ago, for example, the leading open-source AI model was Meta’s OPT-175B. Today, a leading open-source model, Mistral 7B, is 40 times smaller, at least 40 times cheaper to operate, and outperforms its predecessor. Remarkably, it was developed by a company of just 18 people.And this is just the beginning. AI is currently experiencing its own version of Moore’s law, setting the stage for rapid uptake, akin to the diffusion of telephones and televisions. This accelerated process calls for a shift in focus toward developing practical applications and mitigating risks, rather than fixating on reducing costs.The rise of AI is a double-edged sword. The technology could be a powerful equaliser or a source of division, depending on how it is deployed and who controls it. Like previous technological revolutions, it promises to create new employment opportunities while simultaneously threatening to displace existing jobs. A recent report by the International Monetary Fund underscores this point, warning that AI could lead to a growing divide between tech-savvy individuals, well-positioned to reap the economic benefits of innovation, and those who risk falling behind.But our understanding of these technologies must reflect their complexities and the power of human ingenuity. By developing and promoting AI systems that significantly improve essential services, especially in underserved regions, we could ensure that their benefits are broadly shared. To achieve this, AI technologies must be deployed with the explicit objective of reducing existing inequalities.At the same time, it is worth noting that AI will most likely increase the overall consumer surplus by lowering the costs associated with certain services. To ensure that these benefits reach the majority of people, a two-fold strategy is necessary: enabling individuals to harness this value locally while redistributing the overall gains to those unable to access them.Hence, enhancing the accessibility of AI is both feasible and critical. To leverage these technologies to tackle pressing social problems, it is crucial to identify specific areas where AI can make a substantial difference, such as healthcare, education, environmental sustainability, and governance. But setting the right priorities and implementing technological solutions requires a concerted effort. The concept of AI for good should be integrated into the strategies of development institutions and multilateral organisations.But first, the global conversation about AI must shift from “wow” to “what” and “how.” It is time to move away from mere fascination with the emerging technology to identifying the challenges it can address and devising strategies for its integration into the educational and social systems of developed and developing countries alike. Preparing society for an AI-augmented future requires more than just technological innovation; it calls for establishing ethical frameworks, updating policymaking, and promoting AI literacy across communities.As we navigate the Stupor Mundi phase of AI, captivated by its seemingly magical capabilities, we must never lose sight of the fact that the impact of technology depends on how we use it. The choices we make today will determine whether AI benefits and enriches a select few or evolves into a powerful force for positive social change. To realise the promise of Salvator Mundi, we must harness these emerging technologies to forge a better, more inclusive future for all.— Project SyndicatelBertrand Badré, a former managing director of the World Bank, is CEO and Founder of Blue Like an Orange Sustainable Capital and the author of Can finance save the world?lCharles Gorintin, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Alan, is a non-executive co-founder of Mistral AI.

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The successful launch of a Nasa satellite last Thursday is a fillip in the quest to study ocean health, air quality, and the effects of a changing climate for the benefit of humanity. Known as PACE, the Plankton, Aerosol, Climate, ocean Ecosystem satellite has made contact with ground stations back on Earth providing teams with early readings of its overall status, health, operation, and capabilities postlaunch. A full postlaunch assessment review to determine PACE’s readiness to move into the operational phase of its mission will be conducted in the coming weeks.Information collected throughout PACE’s mission will benefit society in the areas of ocean health, harmful algal bloom monitoring, ecological forecasting, and air quality. PACE also will contribute new global measurements of ocean colour, cloud properties, and aerosols, which will be essential to understanding the global carbon cycle and ocean ecosystem responses to a changing climate. The PACE’s mission is designed to last at least three years, though the spacecraft is loaded with enough propellant to expand that timeline more than three times as long.From hundreds of kilometres above Earth, the PACE mission will study the impact of tiny, often invisible things: microscopic life in water and microscopic particles in the air. “With this new addition to Nasa’s fleet of Earth-observing satellites, PACE will help us learn, like never before, how particles in our atmosphere and our oceans can identify key factors impacting global warming,” said Nasa administrator Bill Nelson. “The satellite’s hyperspectral ocean colour instrument will allow researchers to measure oceans and other waterbodies across a spectrum of ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared light. This will enable scientists to track the distribution of phytoplankton and – for the first time from space – identify which communities of these organisms are present on daily, global scales. Scientists and coastal resource managers can use the data to help forecast the health of fisheries, track harmful algal blooms, and identify changes in the marine environment.The spacecraft also carries two polarimeter instruments, Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter #2 and Spectro-polarimeter for Planetary Exploration. These will detect how sunlight interacts with particles in the atmosphere, giving researchers new information on atmospheric aerosols and cloud properties, as well as air quality at local, regional, and global scales. With the combination of the instrument and the polarimeters, PACE will provide insights into the interactions of the ocean and atmosphere, and how a changing climate affects these interactions.“Observations and scientific research from PACE will profoundly advance our knowledge of the ocean’s role in the climate cycle,” said Karen St. Germain, director, Earth Science Division, Science Mission Directorate, at Nasa Headquarters in Washington. “The value of PACE data skyrockets when we combine it with data and science from our Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission – ushering in a new era of ocean science. As an open-source science mission with early adopters ready to use its research and data, PACE will accelerate our understanding of the Earth system and help Nasa deliver actionable science, data, and practical applications to help our coastal communities and industries address rapidly evolving challenges.”Earth’s oceans are responding in many ways to climate change – from sea level rise to marine heat waves to a loss of biodiversity. With PACE, researchers will be able to study climate change’s effects on phytoplankton, which play a key role in the global carbon cycle by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and converting it into their cellular material. These tiny organisms drive larger aquatic and global ecosystems that provide critical resources for food security, recreation, and the economy.

Qatar pursues the policy of openness, co-operation, and engagement withmany sisterly and friendly countries and people, primarily the African nations which have close strategic ties with the state based on co-operation and solidarity towards global and continental issues. Qatar also strives to upgrade its investment programmes to serve the mutual interests with several nations.Notwithstanding the modernity of the Qatar-Rwanda relations, the shared visits at the level of the leaderships of the two nations did not stop, but rather witnessed a remarkable increase in the recent years.In line with this remarkable increase and in the context of the robust and outstanding relationships between the friendly countries and people comes the visit of Rwandan President Paul Kagame to Doha, who was welcomed by His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani at his Lusail Palace office yesterday.The meeting discussed bilateral relations and avenues for enhancing them in multiple areas of co-operation, in addition to regional and global issues of common concern, especially the developments in the Gaza Strip and the occupied Palestinian territories.Qatar is a strategic partner for Rwanda, as the relations between them have been steadily growing since the establishment of the diplomatic ties in 2017. Since then, the leaders of the two countries have been holding meetings regularly. The high-level shared visits between the two sides have given impetus to co-operation in numerous critical fields and shored up partnership between the two nations.In this context, His Highness the Amir visited Rwanda in April 2019 and June 2022 to participate in the 26th Commonwealth heads of government meeting held in Kigali, while the Rwandan president paid visits to Doha in March 2023, February 2022, October 2021, October 2019, December 2019 and November 2018.Qatar and Rwanda have ambitious and promising relations that underscore their resolve to reinforce and upgrade them for the sake of the two countries and friendly peoples, as the two nations constantly work to forge a model partnership and co-operate in numerous matters to serve their interests, as well as the interests of others.President Kagame had emphasised the importance of the strategic partnership between his country and Qatar, especially that the Gulf region is booming and abounds with numerous vital opportunities, noting the significance of investing the economic growth.During a panel discussion within the Qatar Economic Forum 2023, powered by Bloomberg, he said there is no country capable of achieving economic growth alone, especially a small country like Rwanda, highlighting the need to build partnerships with market leaders. He pointed out that negotiations have been completed and moved to the stage of achieving what was agreed upon with Qatar, noting that the country continues to build partnerships with Qatar Airways, with work underway to build Kigali Airport.The two nations have an array of agreements and memorandums of understanding that cover political, diplomatic, economic, trade, agricultural, cultural and sports fields, in addition to investment and co-operation sectors in aviation and double taxation avoidance.The two countries signed an agreement to acquire 60% of the share of the Rwandan Bugesera International Airport, and Qatar Airways signed two agreements with the Rwandan tourism air transport company and one agreement with the Aviation, Travel and Logistics Holding Limited in Rwanda, along with a memorandum of understanding for defence co-operation.In November 2023, Qatar, represented by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MoCIT), signed a memorandum of understanding in communications and information technology with Rwanda. The memorandum was signed during an official visit made by a delegation from MoCIT to Kigali within Qatar’s efforts to boost co-operation in communication and information technology with Africa.On the sidelines of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Air Services Negotiation Event (ICAN2023) that took place in Riyadh last December, the civil aviation authorities of Qatar and Rwanda held bilateral talks that culminated in the signing of an MoU that allows the concerned airlines of both countries to enter into commercial co-operation agreements.Considered as Qatar’s investment arm in food and agribusiness sectors, Hassad Food signed an MoU with the government of Rwanda on enhancing bilateral food and agricultural co-operation and investment.Qatar Financial Centre (QFC), a leading onshore financial and business centre in the region, signed an MoU with Rwanda Finance Limited (RFL) to facilitate initiatives that will promote the international development of both QFC and Kigali International Financial Centre.Moreover, RwandAir and Qatar Airways have signed a comprehensive codeshare agreement to offer travellers more choice, enhanced service, and greater connectivity to more than 65 destinations across Africa and the rest of the world.President Kagame had expressed his country’s interest in strengthen its relations and economic partnership with Qatar, citing Qatar’s development model as being exemplary and Rwanda as being one of the fastest growing economies in Africa. He highlighted Rwanda’s possession of a prosperous and stable investment environment in industries such as: textiles, clothing, leather, agriculture, livestock, industry, tourism, information and communications technology, pharmaceuticals, and the services sector.Located south of the equator in the Great Lakes region of central Africa, Rwanda is a landlocked country that connects to the outer world through its neighbours, especially via the ports of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and Mombasa in Kenya. The country has a population of about 12mn.In the early 1990s, Rwanda witnessed one of the bloodiest ethnic clashes in history. Despite that, it was able to make a comeback as united, prosperous, and globally competitive state.Rwanda’s success story is deemed as a case-study example for transformation and advancement.

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International Monetary Fund (IMF) has praised Qatar’s Third National Development Strategy and noted the upcoming NDS3 is expected to provide an ambitious reform agenda to guide the transformation toward a private sector-led, knowledge-based, more diversified and greener economy, as envisaged under QNV 2030.Qatar’s NDS3, which was unveiled last month, outlines a transformative vision for the nation from 2024 to 2030, aiming at economic diversification, sustainable fiscal practices, and the development of a future-ready workforce.The strategy focuses on seven key outcomes: economic diversification, fiscal sustainability, future-ready workforce, cohesive society, quality of life, environmental sustainability and government excellence.In its recent assessment of Qatar’s economy, IMF said the country’s structural reforms continue to progress, including to enhance protection and mobility of expatriate labour, improve the business environment, promote public-private partnerships, and further attract private investment through the residency programme and broadened foreign ownership provisions.The pension scheme has been expanded to more Qataris in the private sector to promote private sector employment. Digitalisation has continued to advance, and many climate initiatives guided by the National Environment and Climate Change Strategy and the Climate Change Action Plan are being implemented.Qatar’s decade-long efforts to diversify the economy culminated into the successful hosting of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, IMF noted. After very strong performance in 2022 on the back of World Cup-induced buoyancy and high hydrocarbon prices, growth has been normalising, with real GDP growth in 2023 projected at 1.6%. Growth normalisation is expected to continue in the near term, with non-hydrocarbon growth supported by investment in public projects, construction of the North Field LNG expansion project, and their spillovers to logistics, manufacturing, and trade.Visibility brought by the World Cup could continue to boost tourism. Medium-term growth is expected to average around 5.5%, boosted by significant LNG production expansion and initial reform gains from implementing NDS3.Qatar’s banks are well-capitalised, liquid, and profitable, with the capital adequacy ratio and return on equity at 19 and 14.6%, respectively, in the second quarter of 2023.Banks’ nonresident deposits fell by more than one-third from the recent peak, partially replaced by higher public sector domestic deposits, reducing vulnerabilities amid tight global financial conditions.The NPL ratio continued to edge up to 3.8% but the provisioning coverage ratio is relatively high, close to 80%. Banks were resilient to the financial market turmoil from advanced economies in early-2023.IMF concluded that Qatar has remained resilient to the recent global shocks and its economic outlook is favourable. Output growth is normalising as expected from the 2022 WC-driven boom.The nation’s favourable medium-term outlook is supported by the significant expansion of LNG production in North Field and expected gains from the implementation of NDS3.Risks are broadly balanced. Maintaining prudent macroeconomic policy and intensifying reform efforts will support Qatar’s resilience to shocks and accelerate its economic transformation.The fiscal strategy should balance discipline with growth in the near term and facilitate the transition to more diversified, private sector-led growth over the medium term.If downside risks to growth materialise and the ongoing growth slowdown sharpens, some fiscal space could be deployed through productive and efficient spending while maintaining broad fiscal prudence.

Relations between Qatar and Hungary are based on decades of friendship, mutual respect, and the sharing of many social and humanitarian values. The two countries have a common and firm belief in the importance of maintaining international peace and stability, settling disputes through dialogue and peaceful means and having an active and influential role in this matter at the regional and international levels.In the context of these principles and as an embodiment of its noble goals, the official visit of Hungarian President Katalin Novak to Doha aims to discuss bilateral relations and ways to support and enhance them in various fields, as well as review the most important and current international issues of mutual interest.President Novak’s visit is expected to further contribute to improving bilateral relations in many fields as well as launch new horizons of co-operation thus servicing the goals, aspirations and common interests of the two countries and their friendly peoples.Qatar and Hungary established relations at the level of non-resident embassies in 1990. Relations witnessed a major shift in 2004 with the opening of the two countries’ embassies, representing the keenness to develop relations between the two sides and build bridges of co-operation and joint work, which even grew stronger during the past years.The relations have grown in many fields and have reached an unprecedented level thanks to high-level visits exchanged between the two sides and the signing of a number of agreements and memorandums of understanding (MoU) in the fields of politics, commercial, industry, culture, art, tourism, sports, air services, energy, economics, business, education, higher education and scientific research, as well as avoidance of double taxation and prevention of financial evasion.These relations were consolidated after the important official visit made by His Highness the Father Amir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani to Hungary on June 12, 2002, while the first visit of a Hungarian president to Qatar was by former president Janos Ader in May 2014.When it comes to recent visits between Qatar and Hungary, the most prominent was His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani’s official visit to Hungary in August last year, during which His Highness discussed with President Novak and Prime Minister Viktor Orban co-operation relations and ways to strengthen and advance them, notably in the economy, investment and energy fields, as well as discussing the most prominent regional and international topics and developments of mutual interest.The Amir and the prime minister also witnessed the signing of agreements between the governments of the two countries in environmental protection, diplomatic training, youth and sports and agriculture.Following the Amir’s visit to Budapest, Qatar and Hungary announced that they had raised the level of bilateral relations to the level of a strategic one.Orban also recently made several visits to Doha, the most recent of which was in May 2023, where he expressed his country’s intention to raise its relationship with Doha to a strategic level to become one of its most important political and economic partners.Mutual visits at all levels and agreements signed between Qatar and Hungary contributed to bringing the countries’ business communities and investors together.In July 2023, Budapest hosted the third session of the Qatari-Hungarian Joint Economic Committee. The session discussed co-operation in various key sectors such as trade, investment, construction, infrastructure, agriculture, maritime transport, civil aviation, health, education and information technology.Qatar and Hungary also agreed during the third session to take the necessary steps to move forward in consolidating trade and investment co-operation between the two countries with the aim of increasing the volume of trade exchange and facilitating the flow of goods, services and investments.Last March, a round of political consultations was held in Budapest between the foreign ministries of Qatar and Hungary where they discussed co-operation relations between the two sides and ways to support and enhance them.With their interest in developing economic and trade relations and exploring broader horizons for intra-trade, the prospects for co-operation between Qatar and Hungary appear promising in the future.In 2022, the volume of trade exchange between Qatar and Hungary reached about $77mn, showing that the two countries are still far from utilising all the trade opportunities and capabilities available.Hungary hopes that Qatar will become a leading export destination in the future for Hungarian companies while Qataris can view Hungary as a leading investment destination, especially in the automobile industry, chemical industries, pharmaceuticals, infrastructure projects, agriculture and more.The investment climate in Hungary also stimulates the establishment of joint Qatari-Hungarian projects. There is great interest on Budapest’s part in facilitating business for Qatari investors and the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (HCCI) supports the establishment of these joint projects.On the other hand, the market in Qataris full of opportunities for cooperation, especially in light of the incentives provided by the state to encourage investments notably in the sectors of industry, agriculture, tourism and more.The investment environment in Qatar is encouraging and its laws, legislation and procedures facilitate the launch and practice of business. There is an advanced infrastructure as well as many opportunities in the free and industrial zones.Located in Central Europe surrounded by land on all sides and with no access to the sea, Hungary has an area of about 93,000 sq km and its population is estimated at 9.7mn. Forests cover about 20% of its lands, and its key river is the Danube River.Hungary is also a global tourist destination that is visited annually by about 30mn people due to its picturesque nature and is also known for its hot baths that are used for natural treatment.The Hungarian economy is currently based mainly on the services sector, which represents two-thirds of the GDP, followed by industry at 24%, and the agricultural and construction sectors. The automotive industry and related industries occupy advanced positions within the industrial sector, as some German and Japanese companies make large investments in this field.Hungary is actively seeking to attract more foreign investments, especially as it is rich in many natural resources, the most important of which are: bauxite, coal, iron ore, manganese, natural gas and oil. It exports machinery, equipment, agricultural products, food and livestock, and mainly imports fuel and mineral raw materials.

Qatar’s ambassador in Budapest, Abdullah bin Falah al-Dosari, said Hungarian President Katalin Novak would discuss several topics during herofficial visit to Doha, especially ways to develop multi-field relations and investment between the two countries and the situation in the region.Speaking to Qatar News Agency (QNA), the ambassador said Qatar has great confidence that Hungary’s presidency of the Council of the EU in the second half of 2024 would help reach the best results to stop the conflicts and wars across the world.Further visits by delegations from both countries are expected in the coming period and multi-area joint committees are currently being worked on, he said, adding that both sides will hold the fourth session of the Joint Economic Committee in Doha during the second half of 2024, under the chairmanship of HE the Minister of Commerce and Industry Sheikh Mohamed bin Hamad bin Qassim al-Thani and Hungary’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto.Highlighting co-operation between the two countries, the ambassador spoke about the economic, cultural, political and energy sectors, especially in investment and exchange of experiences in various fields, highlighting that Hungary will receive in early 2026 the first Qatari LNG batch.Hungary has been supporting Qatar on several occasions including before and during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, he added, noting that Hungary was at the forefront of the European countries that granted Qatari citizens in particular obstacle-free Schengen visas like a number of other European countries.He added that bilateral relations are rapidly growing and have been elevated to a strategic partnership after His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani’s official visit to Hungary on Aug 20-21, 2023, coinciding the National Day of Hungary.During the visit, the Amir signed some bilateral agreements and memorandums of understanding (MoUs), and several joint committees convened including the joint economic committee, and the political dialogue, he added.The ambassador also highlighted Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s visit to Qatar in May 2023 to participate in the Third Qatar Economic Forum, as well as other joint visits by a number of ministers from both countries.He concluded that several co-operation agreements and MoUs, currently under study, are hoped to be completed by the end of 2024 to be added to previous agreements and MoUs that included an agreement for bilateral co-operation in the areas of youth and sports, a co-operation MoU in agriculture, an MoU on environmental protection, and a co-operation MoU in diplomatic training.Meanwhile, Hungary’s ambassador to Qatar Ferenc Korom affirmed that President Novak’s visit to Doha aims to conclude new agreements in new areas of co-operation. He pointed out that this visit is a continuation of the diplomatic visits that began during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 finals and aims to strengthen the healthy relationship based on mutual respect between the two countries.Speaking to Qatar News Agency (QNA), the Hungarian ambassador said: “The most prominent file that will be discussed is the matter of peace and family. Both our countries are seeking peace and stability and are in favour of immediate peace in the Ukrainian-Russian crisis as well as in the Gaza crisis. Hungary’s long-standing relationship with Qatar is based on decades of friendship and mutual respect, as our countries share many common social and human values, and the same position in a number of issues of high importance in political and social affairs.”He added: “Relations between our nations are strong and solid as ever, Hungary and Qatar have reached a never before seen level of diplomatic visits on both sides in the last 14 months. Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban has visited the State of Qatar twice recently, during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 and Qatar Economic Forum in May 2023.”The ambassador stressed that the Hungarian government together with its people were honoured and pleased to welcome His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani on his historic visit to Hungary, which was a wonderful opportunity for the leaders of the two countries to raise the two nations’ relationship to a strategic level.Concerning the economic aspect, he pointed out that the bilateral trade exchange has reached historical levels in recent years in light of the recent political bilateral visits.“The Hungarian Export Promotion Agency (HEPA) in close co-operation with Qatar Development Bank are actively matching up Hungarian agricultural and food producing companies with their potential Qatari counterparts in the form of business forums. I hope that Qatar will soon become a top export destination for Hungarian companies owing to this government effort,” he said.Ambassador Korom explained: “The bilateral agreements currently under discussion are areas of investment, health and agriculture or defence, among many others. But the most important at the moment is to finalise the bilateral investment protection agreement between our nations making it a significant development and a move forward in the relationship.”He pointed out that the Hungarian government is interested in Qatar becoming a strategic investor in the fields of air transport, real estate, the hotel industry, defence industries, and others.

The latest spate of strikes by German train drivers made life difficult for Bentheimer Eisenbahn AG, a 129-year-old freight and logistics company that lost 10% of its sales in January and worries it may lose important clients.The drivers’ strike, one of the longest in their union’s history, is part of a wave of industrial action inflicting pain on an already vulnerable economy and sparking calls to reform Germany’s prized industrial model for worker relations.The latest walkout saw Lufthansa ground staff go on strike on Wednesday, disrupting major hubs such as Frankfurt.While Germany still loses a fraction of its working days to strikes compared to some of its peers, the number is rising, and scenes of snarled roads, empty airports and millions of passengers stranded have blemished its image.“It’s a toxic cocktail that’s brewing... Everything comes together: poor quality, poor infrastructure, then the strikes on top of that. The system can’t cope with that,” said Joachim Berends, Bentheimer Eisenbahn’s CEO.“And the employees...are sawing at the branch they themselves are sitting on if they overdo it,” he told Reuters.Germany’s labour market has tightened further in recent years as the post-World War Two generation of workers retires and the population ages, giving greater leverage to unions in their negotiations.Unions are pressing for higher wages and improved working conditions to help workers cope with a cost-of-living crisis in which inflation has climbed as high as 8.8% and real wages have dropped for three years in a row since 2020.The German economy, Europe’s largest, has a proud union tradition stretching back into the 19th century and relies on a collective-bargaining model that is meant to prevent strife.The German train drivers’ union, for example, was founded in 1867. Only a trade union is allowed to organise a strike in Germany; political strikes, such as those against pension policy in France last year, are banned.In Germany, an average of 17.8 working days per 1,000 employees were lost due to strikes between 2020 and 2022.This compares to 37.3 in Spain, 79.1 in France and 88.9 in Britain, the latter having seen a large jump in industrial action for example by doctors, railway, bus and metro workers, according to the European Trade Union Institute.However, Germany’s number has also been on the rise since the start of this century, from 12.6 in 2000-2009, to 17.3 in 2010-2019.“The increasing number of strikes in Germany is having an increasingly negative impact on the entire economy,” Marcel Fratzscher, president of the German Institute for Economic Research, was quoted as saying by the Tagesspiegel newspaper.Besides striking workers, farmers protesting against subsidy cuts used their tractors to block roads, dumped manure on the streets and tried to storm a ferry carrying Economy Minister Robert Habeck.The walkouts are starting to take a toll on an economy that is verging on recession.A one-day nationwide rail strike costs around €100mn ($107mn) a day in economic output, according to Michael Groemling, head of economic affairs at IW Koeln.Commerzbank chief economist Joerg Kraemer estimated that the strike would reduce value creation in the transport sector by €30mn per day, which corresponds to 0.3% of daily gross domestic product.“In addition, the rail strike is straining the nerves of the public and scratching the already tarnished image of Germany as a business location,” Kraemer said.

The 25th anniversary of the euro’s introduction, which has passed largely under the radar, offers an opportune moment to assess the current state of the greatest monetary experiment in modern history.The euro’s launch in January 1999 polarised economists. In the face of much scepticism – the late American economist Martin Feldstein even argued that the single currency could trigger a war in Europe – the euro’s architects envisioned a future characterised by macroeconomic stability, anchored by an independent central bank and a fiscal framework geared toward stability. Structural reforms, which the European Union’s member states were expected to implement, were meant to enhance the monetary union’s capacity to adjust to shocks.None of those scenarios materialised. Over the past quarter-century, the euro has shown extraordinary resilience, navigating through several critical challenges and defying early predictions of its collapse. But while the single currency has delivered on some of its promises – most notably, maintaining price stability for most of its existence – it has failed to boost Europe’s potential growth or facilitate the continent’s full economic and political integration.This mixed record can be attributed largely to the fact that Europe’s economic union was incomplete from the outset. Despite the significant progress that has been made since its inception, the eurozone’s fiscal and economic frameworks remain woefully underdeveloped compared to its monetary infrastructure.To understand the consequences of the eurozone’s unfinished architecture, it is useful to divide the past 25 years into four distinct periods. The first phase, from 1999 to 2008, could be labelled the “2% decade”: economic growth, inflation, and budget deficits (as a share of GDP) all hovered around this rate. This phase was characterized by the excessive optimism of the “Great Moderation.”But the internal imbalances that emerged during this period would haunt the eurozone for years to come. The convergence of interest rates, evidenced by minimal spreads, resulted in overly sanguine portrayals of member states’ public finances. Simultaneously, loose fiscal and monetary conditions reduced European governments’ incentives to undertake structural reforms and bolster their banking systems.Nominal convergence also masked more profound structural disparities, as capital flowed from the eurozone’s richest members to their poorer counterparts, where it was frequently channelled into less productive sectors, such as real estate and non-tradable services, often through instruments like short-term bank loans. Consequently, while the eurozone’s current accounts appeared balanced, significant imbalances emerged.The fallout from the 2008 global financial crisis, particularly the discovery that Greece had lied about its budget deficits and debt, eroded trust among member states. The prevailing narrative shifted to one of moral hazard, emphasising the need for each country to get its own house in order.By the time eurozone governments finally co-ordinated a response – establishing the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), launching the banking union project, introducing the European Central Bank’s Outright Monetary Transactions program, and expanding the ECB’s balance sheet – the euro appeared to be on the brink of collapse.The key turning point was the pledge by then-ECB President Mario Draghi to do “whatever it takes” to preserve the euro in July 2012. But with monetary policy increasingly viewed as the “only game in town,” the eurozone’s economic and financial structures remained fragmented.The Covid-19 crisis changed that. The exogenous nature of the pandemic shock, together with the lack of impending elections, enabled EU leaders – led by French President Emmanuel Macron, then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen – to present a unified front, unencumbered by the pressure to avoid moral hazard. The EU suspended the Stability and Growth Pact, which had previously capped member states’ budget deficits at 3% of GDP, and rolled out the Support to mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency and the NextGenerationEU recovery programs, financing both through common borrowing. Meanwhile, the ECB introduced its €1.85tn ($2tn) Pandemic Emergency Purchase Program.Although this demonstration of collective leadership reassured markets, fuelling an economic rebound, the optimism proved to be short-lived. A global inflationary surge, fuelled by robust macroeconomic stimulus and pandemic-related supply-chain disruptions, was exacerbated by the energy-price shock that followed Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Although European policymakers worked together to reduce the EU’s dependence on Russian gas, they failed to mount a collective response akin to the NextGenerationEU initiative. Confronted with rising deficits and debt, not to mention the most aggressive monetary-tightening cycle since the 1980s, EU countries have once again put eurozone reforms on hold.Two important lessons follow from the euro’s first 25 years. First, the monetary union’s incomplete institutional framework has proven to be both costly and dangerous. Finalising the banking union, especially the creation of a common resolution fund with the backstop of the ESM and deposit insurance, is essential to ensure stability and bolster the international role of the euro.Thus, Italy’s recent failure to ratify the ESM treaty is a serious setback. Pushing forward the capital market union is essential if Europe is to meet the financial challenges posed by the digital and green transitions. To achieve all of this, EU leaders must strike a balance between risk sharing and risk reduction.Second, completing the euro is crucial for safeguarding and developing the EU’s greatest achievement: the single market. European countries’ current pursuit of national industrial policies, funded through state aid, undermines the core values of the single-market project. To address this challenge, the EU must formulate a cohesive European industrial policy. This should include an increase in cross-border investments, focusing on European public goods such as human-capital development, the availability of critical materials, and the green and digital transitions.After the fall of the Berlin Wall, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, French President François Mitterrand, and European Commission President Jacques Delors turned the dream of a single currency into a reality.During the Covid-19 crisis, Macron, Merkel, and von der Leyen managed to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles and achieve a historic breakthrough. Now, a quarter-century after its introduction, the euro requires visionary leaders to shepherd European sovereignty to its next phase. — Project Syndicate(This article draws on the CEPR Policy Insights February 1, 2024, paper 'The First 25 Years of the Euro', written under the auspices of the European University Institute’s Economic and Monetary Union Laboratory).Marco Buti is Tommaso Padoa Schioppa Chair at the European University Institute’s Robert Schuman Center.Giancarlo Corsetti is Pierre Werner Chair at the Robert Schuman Center and Professor of Economics at the European University Institute.

What makes a journey? There is the destination, of course; but there is also the route one follows to get there, and the time it takes to complete it. This might be a useful framework for thinking about the future trajectory of inflation and interest rates – a journey with important implications for the cost of capital, valuations and multiples, debt sustainability, and more.The first step is to understand how we got to where we are today. After pandemic-era restrictions were lifted, demand surged across the global economy, sustained partly by healthy household and corporate balance sheets, which reflected the generous fiscal support governments had delivered during the pandemic. But fiscal expansion also caused sovereign-debt levels to rise sharply – a development that will have consequences down the road.When post-pandemic demand surged, the supply side could not keep up, so inflationary pressure intensified. Some of the supply-side disruptions – the so-called transitory blockages – were a legacy of pandemic-induced closures and imbalances, and quickly eased. But others proved to be deeper, secular, and structural, and excess demand remained stubbornly persistent. Eventually, major central banks intervened, rapidly hiking interest rates to constrain aggregate demand. And their efforts seem to have worked: inflation rates have started to come down.What will happen next? Asset-management experts say that, paradoxically, the precise path of transitions tends to be more difficult to predict than the destination. This is an example of a general feature of economic analysis: the equilibria at which markets land can often be characterised more precisely than the transitions between them.So, let’s look at our destination. Inflation would be at or near the 2% target to which central banks have committed, and which markets expect, and the real interest rate is at a level that keeps supply and demand reasonably balanced (thereby eliminating the root cause of inflationary pressure). Based on recent inflation trends, this equilibrium appears entirely achievable without a sharp or even mild economic contraction. The question is what that real interest rate will be.Inflation in the United States currently is 3.4%, and the US Federal Reserve’s policy rate is 5.25-5.5%. That puts the real interest rate at about 2%. So far, this level does not seem to have had any significant negative effect on either GDP growth or employment.Although the Fed decided at its first meeting of 2024 to keep its benchmark interest rate unchanged, markets have been pricing in a return to the 2% inflation target by the end of the year. If the Fed lowers the discount rate by 1.5% this year, to the 4% range, the real interest rate would hold at about 2%. This path for interest rates – six 25-basis-point reductions in 2024 – is consistent with market expectations, and somewhat more aggressive than the Fed’s own projections, according to its latest dot plot.Interest-rate expectations – both nominal and real – beyond 2024 seem more problematic. The dot plot anticipates significant further rate cuts in 2025 and 2026. If the forecasts bear out, the real interest rate would decline and settle at (or close to) 0.5%. This seems very unlikely, given persistent structural supply-side constraints (including labour shortages, population ageing, and declining productivity) and rising costs driven by geopolitical tensions, shocks, and rapid and expensive diversification of global supply networks.In this scenario, asset prices would become elevated, just as they were in the decade after the 2008 global financial crisis, and credit would expand, driving up demand. But without a surge in either labour supply or productivity, supply would probably lag and inflationary pressure would re-emerge, driving the real interest rate even lower.To be sure, a productivity surge is possible, especially given breakthroughs in generative artificial intelligence. But when? Even those of us who anticipate an AI-driven increase in productivity growth do not expect it to happen quickly; it appears far more likely in the latter part of the decade than in the next 2-3 years.But that could change. If the AI-driven productivity boost does arrive quickly, it would dramatically increase the elasticity of the supply side of the economy. This would have a deflationary impact, much as emerging-economy growth – which added massive productive capacity to the global economy – did in the last 3-4 decades.