After nine years of political conflict in Syria, more than 5.5 million Syrians are now displaced as refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, with more than 3.6 million refugees in Turkey alone. It is unlikely that many of these refugees will be able to return home or resettle in Europe, Canada, or the United States.…

It has been more than a month since the first COVID-19 case was detected in Turkey. Since then, the number of cases has shot up significantly, placing Turkey among the top 10 countries worldwide in terms of cases. Government efforts have kept the number of deaths relatively low, and the health system so far appears…

Turkey is well into its second month since the first coronavirus case was diagnosed on March 10. As of May 5, the number of reported cases has reached almost 130,000, which puts Turkey among the top eight countries grappling with the deadly disease — ahead of even China and Iran. Fortunately, so far, the Turkish death…

It’s embarrassing to admit, since I work in a Center on Children and Families, but I had never really thought about the word “relative” until I read the new Atlantic essay from David Brooks, “The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake.” In everyday language, relatives are just the people you are related to. But what does…

This week in Class Notes: Reforming college admissions to boost representation of low and middle-income students could substantially reduce income segregation between institutions and increase intergenerational mobility. The Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend increased fertility and reduced the spacing between births, particularly for females age 20-44. Federal judges are more likely to hire female law clerks after serving on a panel…

President Lyndon B. Johnson introduced his “war on poverty” during his State of the Union speech on Jan. 8, 1964, citing the “national disgrace” that deserved a “national response.” Today, many of the poor children of the Johnson era are poor adults with children and grandchildren of their own. Inequity has widened so that people…

This week in Class Notes: The Texas Top Ten Percent rule increased equity and economic efficiency. There are big gaps in U.S. early-life mortality rates by family structure. Locally-concentrated income shocks can persistently change the distribution of poverty within a city. Our top chart shows how income inequality changed in the United States between 2007 and 2016. Tammy Kim describes the effect of the…

While COVID-19 is invisible to the eye, one very visible sign of the epidemic is people wearing face masks in public. After weeks of conflicting government guidelines on wearing masks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended that people wear nonsurgical cloth face coverings when entering public spaces such as supermarkets and public…

South Africa offers bailout for state-owned power utility Eskom On Tuesday, July 23, the South African minister of finance presented a bill to parliament requesting a bailout of more than $4 billion for state-owned power utility Eskom. Eskom supplies about 95 percent of South Africa’s power, but has been unable to generate sufficient revenue to…

This week, the Africa Growth Initiative at Brookings published a new policy brief, “Taxing mobile phone transactions in Africa: Lessons from Kenya.” The brief discusses the limited ability of increased tax rates on mobile money transactions and mobile phone airtime to raise a significant amount of new tax revenue. According to the brief, these taxes…

On March 17, GeoPoll released the results of their survey deployed to determine perceptions and understanding of COVID-19 in South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria. South Africa currently has the highest number of diagnosed cases of the virus of any African country, and, while the number of diagnosed cases is currently low in Nigeria and Kenya,…

African governments take varying approaches to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 As of this writing, Africa has registered over 39,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 1,600 deaths, with most cases concentrated in the north of the continent as well as in South Africa. African countries have enacted various forms of lockdowns, external and internal border closures,…

On March 15, 2020, the Kenyan government abruptly closed schools and colleges nationwide in response to COVID-19, disrupting nearly 17 million learners countrywide. The social and economic costs will not be borne evenly, however, with devastating consequences for marginalized learners. This is especially the case for girls in rural, marginalized communities like the Maasai, Samburu,…

The 2020 presidential election and the partisan divide over the coronavirus crisis have highlighted what we have known for some time: American politics is increasingly polarized, our political communication is nasty and brutish, and thoughtful deliberation and compromise feel increasingly out of reach. On the positive side, we don’t seem to like this state of…

Introduction Recent high-profile litigation and settlements among states and local governments with drug companies have highlighted the costs of the opioid epidemic on communities. The dollar amounts discussed in some of these cases have been huge. For example, Purdue Pharma and Mallinckrodt agreed to a national settlements of about $10 billion and $1.6 billion, respectively,…

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a historic spike in unemployment insurance claims, and there is growing consensus that the economy is headed for a potentially deep and protracted recession. In the past, postsecondary credentials or degrees have helped mitigate the impact of an economic downturn. Of all new jobs created after the Great Recession, 99%…

Public schools in America were established to equip students with the tools to become engaged and informed citizens. How are we doing on this core mission? Last week, the National Center of Education Statistics released results from the 2018 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) civics assessment to provide an answer. The NAEP civics assessment…

COVID-19 has upended, along with everything else, the balance sheets of the nation’s elementary and secondary schools. As soon as school buildings closed, districts faced new costs associated with distance learning, ranging from physically distributing instructional packets and up to three meals a day, to supplying instructional programming for television and distributing Chromebooks and internet…

The coronavirus pandemic has thrown America into a coast-to-coast lockdown, spurring ubiquitous economic impacts. Data on smartphone movement indicate that virtually all regions of the nation are practicing some degree of social distancing, resulting in less foot traffic and sales for businesses. Meanwhile, last week’s release of unemployment insurance claims confirms that every state is seeing a significant…

As COVID-19 requires more and more swaths of the country to shelter at home, broadband is more essential than ever. Access to the internet means having the ability to work from home, connecting with friends and family, and ordering food and other essential goods online. For businesses, it allows the possibility of staying open without…

The COVID-19 crisis is testing America’s resilience. The rapidly accelerating economic fallout makes concrete the risks for a national economy built on the success of just a few key economic centers. When the nation turns to the work of recovery, our goal must be to expand the number and breadth of healthy communities, jump-starting a…

Executive Summary While America spent the past decade upgrading its bank-based magnetic striped cards with chips, China experienced a retail payment revolution. Leapfrogging the card-based system, two new payment systems have come to dominate person-to-person, retail, and many business transactions. China’s new system is built on digital wallets, QR codes (two-dimensional bar codes), and runs…

Surging unemployment claims show that our labor market, built for efficiency, can crumble in times of crisis at huge human and economic costs. The pandemic has exposed a weak point in the country’s economy: the precarity of low-wage workers. Many have adapted to unimaginable circumstances, risking their own well-being, implementing public health protocols, and keeping…

Prior to COVID-19, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were gaining traction among local governments and city leaders as a framework to focus local policy on ambitious targets around inclusion, equity, and sustainability. Several cities published reports of their local progress on the SDGs in Voluntary Local Reviews (VLR), echoing the official format used by countries…

Like in other parts of the world, the Western Balkans are suffering a heavy blow as the novel coronavirus spreads. Governments are sending people home, and only a few businesses are allowed to operate. What began as a health shock has required a conscious—and necessary—temporary activity freeze to slow the spread of infection, leading to…

To be capable of surveilling, preventing, and managing disease outbreaks, public health systems require trustworthy, community-embedded public health workers who are empowered to undertake their tasks as professionals. The world has not invested in this cadre of health workers, despite the lessons from Ebola. In a new paper, my co-authors and I discuss why, and…

The more things change, the more they stay the same. For the nearly 860 million people living without electricity, the technologies and business options for delivering access have grown a lot. Yet a wide gap remains between the cost of providing last-mile electricity and what poorer folks are able to pay. It’s the same challenge that every…

Here’s a striking statistic: Low-income and lower-middle income countries (LICs and LMICs) account for almost half of the global population but they make up only 2 percent of the global death toll attributed to COVID-19. We think this difference is unreal. Views about the severity of the pandemic have evolved a lot since its outbreak…

The release of the IMF’s World Economic Outlook provides an initial country-by-country assessment of what might happen to the world economy in 2020 and 2021. Using the methods described in the World Poverty Clock, we ask what will happen to the number of poor people in the world—those living in households with less than $1.90…

In the futuristic 2002 film “Minority Report,” law enforcement uses a predictive technology that includes artificial intelligence (AI) for risk assessments to arrest possible murderers before they commit crimes. However, a police officer is now one of the accused future murderers and is on the run from the Department of Justice to prove that the…

As homicides levels in Mexico are rising and U.S. pressure is mounting, the administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (known widely as AMLO) is turning further away from several core precepts of the security policy with which it assumed office. The idea of giving amnesty to some criminals as a way to reduce violence that…

The January revelations around illicit financial gains by Isabel dos Santos, Africa’s richest woman and daughter of former Angolan president Edoardo dos Santos, have once again brought the topic of illicit financial flows to the forefront of the conversation on domestic resource mobilization in Africa. Unfortunately, illicit flows are not new to the continent: While…

This month, the Africa Growth Initiative at Brookings published a policy brief examining trends in illicit financial flows (IFFs) from Africa between 1980 and 2018, which are estimated to total approximately $1.3 trillion. A serious detriment to financial and economic development on the continent, illicit financial flows are defined as “the illegal movement of money…

That Mexican criminal groups have been handing out assistance to local populations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping through Mexico has generated much attention. Among the Mexican criminal groups that have jumped on the COVID-19 “humanitarian aid” bandwagon are the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), the Sinaloa Cartel, Los Viagras, the Gulf Cartel, and…

Although the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) developed from efforts to design an international system to protect internally displaced persons (IDPs), it's application may not always work to their benefit. Roberta Cohen points out that to ensure that IDPs gain from this concept, special strategies will be needed to reconcile R2P with IDP protection.

In this letter to the editor, Roberta Cohen argues that the Obama administration should consult the United States' 2004 internally displaced persons (IDP) policy to help ensure that the human rights of the 27 million IDPs in the world are properly protected.

Sudan’s north-south civil war was the longest conflict in African history and claimed more than two million lives, and on January 9, 2011, a referendum will take place, allowing the southern Sudanese to vote on whether to remain part of Sudan or to gain independence. On October 13, Foreign Policy at Brookings hosted a discussion of the prospects for the Sudan referendum featuring Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ).

Brookings expert Elizabeth Ferris and Senior Politico Editor Fred Barbash took questions about humanitarian issues in Iraq and Darfur as well as the ICC's arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omara Hassan al-Bashir in this week’s edition of the Scouting Report.

On June 27, the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement hosted a discussion with representatives from the Sudanese government; Lynn Fredriksson, Africa advocacy director for Amnesty International USA; and Pamela Fierst, a member of the Sudan policy group at the State Department, to examine Sudan’s 2005 peace agreement and to explore the ways in which it has been successfully implemented and the areas in which challenges still exist.

Arab nomads in Darfur have organized interlocking conflict resolution networks to address local disputes before they escalate. Their work could help bring lasting peace to a region plagued by violence. But it requires stronger international support to fulfill its promise.

On Saturday night, March 28, two missiles were fired at the Saudi capital of Riyadh. They were intercepted by Saudi defenses, but two Saudis were injured in the falling debris. Another missile was fired at the city of Jazan. This is the first attack on the Saudi capital since last September’s devastating attacks by Iran on the Abqaiq…

On April 13, 2020, Suzanne Maloney discussed "Why the Middle East Matters" via video conference with IHS Markit.

Throughout its tumultuous four decades of rule, the Islamic Republic has shown remarkable longevity, despite regular predictions of its im- pending demise. However, the fact that it has largely failed to deliver on the promises of the 1979 revolution, above all democracy and social justice, continues to haunt its present and future. Iran’s post-revolutionary history…

President Trump is planning on a trip to India — probably next month, depending on his impeachment trial in the Senate. That will be almost exactly 20 years after President Clinton’s pathbreaking trip to India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan in March 2000. There are some interesting lessons to be learned from looking back. Presidential travel to…

On January 28 at the White House, President Trump unveiled his plan for Middle East peace alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjanim Netanyahu. Below, Brookings experts on the peace process and the region more broadly offer their initial takes on the announcement. Natan Sachs (@natansachs), Director of the Center for Middle East Policy: This is a…

On Valentine’s Day 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt met with Saudi King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud on an American cruiser, the USS Quincy, in the Suez Canal. It was the dawn of what is now the longest U.S. relationship with an Arab state. Today the relationship is in decline, perhaps terminally, and needs recasting. FDR…

The agreement signed on February 29 in Doha between American and Taliban negotiators lays out a plan for ending the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, and opens a path for direct intra-Afghan talks on the country's political future. Brookings experts on Afghanistan, the U.S. mission there, and South Asia more broadly analyze the deal and…

On Saturday night, March 28, two missiles were fired at the Saudi capital of Riyadh. They were intercepted by Saudi defenses, but two Saudis were injured in the falling debris. Another missile was fired at the city of Jazan. This is the first attack on the Saudi capital since last September’s devastating attacks by Iran on the Abqaiq…

In a leap backwards, the Cuban government has published a massive compendium of tough new regulations governing the island’s struggling private enterprises. The new regulations—the first major policy pronouncement during the administration of President Miguel Díaz-Canel—appear more focused on controlling and restricting the emerging private sector than on stimulating investment and job creation, more concerned…