Constitutional Review. Time to rethink the five year mandate. It forces our leaders to look for quick wins, and this is often at the expense of longer term and more sustainable results. Short five year terms may be OK for “matured” economies, their railways are already built, road infrastructure in place, cities more or less […]
Policy dilemmas and alternatives in a post-Ebola Economy
Sierra Leone’s economic performance in the three years preceding the Ebola outbreak was impressive. The decline in iron ore prices occurred at the same time and wreaked further havoc to the economy. Paradoxically, some of the consequences were off-set by the Ebola dividend—budget support, limited debt relief, and more aid from donors including the IMF, […]
The Miracle That Became a Debacle: Iron Ore in Sierra Leone
Outstanding and explosive piece by David Mihalyi on revenue management posted on the Natural Resource Management Institute blog. Mihalyi writes about the “deep turmoil” resource-rich, developing countries are experiencing due to low commodity prices: The impact of the price fall on the plans of all of these countries is daunting, and their governments face steep challenges in […]
The Ugly, the Bad, and the Good of Ebola
After the misery, suffering and desolation caused by the Epidemic, the bad is slowly revealing itself and finally for Ebola, some Good seems to have been lurking among it all. There is enough written and still pouring in about the Ugly part of the Ebola epidemic. Sadly, in addition to the human misery of over […]
Basing Policy on Empirical Evidence
The use of empirical evidence to influence or determine policy is one of the major challenges found in countries at the bottom of the development ladder. What is the evidence so far about the transmission of Ebola? I am told by one of our erudite specialists in the field that over 99% of the cases […]
Planning for a post-Ebola West Africa: Part 1: The economy
Rachel Glennerster, one of the authors of Running Randomized Evaluations, is writing about how we can plan to rebuild, post-Ebola. The blog can be found on runningres.com/blog. In her first post she provides some thoughts about rebuilding the economy: Planning for a post-Ebola West Africa: Part 1: The economy .