• Exclusion in Nigeria: A paper from the Brookings Institution tackles a troubling question: why have poverty and inequality increased even as Nigeria’s economy has grown? The paper blames two factors. First, manufacturing could greatly boost job creation and poverty reduction. But Nigeria has failed to support firms and entrepreneurs, leaving an anemic sector worth only 4 percent of GDP. Second is federalism. With states subsisting largely on oil revenue from Abuja, governors are not held accountable for their economic performance and social services. The paper suggests “performance and evaluation platforms” to increase accountability and various reforms for industry and agriculture. Read more »

It’s good to have heroes. One of mine is Sakena Yacoobi, the founder of a terrific organization called the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL) that provides education and health services to women across Afghanistan. I first met Sakena nearly a decade ago, and have followed her work closely since then. I’ve visited several of AIL’s programs in Afghanistan and wrote about her and her work in my book Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women are Transforming the Middle East. Read more »

Last fall, I had the pleasure of attending the wedding of my Iranian-American former research assistant, Negar Razavi, who married Sherif Mansour, an Egyptian democracy activist. It was one of those only-in-America gatherings, bringing together a remarkable cross-section of Iranians and Egyptians. I loved how, standing in the rolling fields of Pennsylvania, both sides made dueling toasts about whose civilization stretched further back into history. That joyous occasion was much on my mind when I heard that Sherif had returned to Egypt this weekend to stand trial as one of the civil society activists accused by the Egyptian government of illegal democracy promotion activities. Last December, the Egyptian police raided seventeen civil society organizations including several U.S.-based NGOs and some local NGOs receiving overseas funding. The government arrested 43 people, including 16 Americans. It refused to let seven Americans charged in the crackdown leave the country and relented only after the U.S. paid about $300,000 in bail per U.S. citizen. Sherif, who for the past several years has managed the Middle East North Africa programs for Freedom House, was indicted in absentia since he was not in Egypt at the time of the crackdown. Read more »

• China’s Economy: This week’s Economist features a sanguine special report on China’s economy. The report “argues that China does face significant problems, but nothing it cannot handle.” While many believe exports power China’s economy, it says, the real engine is investment. And China has not overinvested. Some investments have been misguided, especially through local governments and state-owned enterprises, but the cash-rich banks and central government can handle any bad loans that result. Still, the report notes the need for daunting reforms, such as liberalizing the financial sector, boosting social spending, and scrapping the hukou system of residence permits. “The faster that China expands, the sooner it will outgrow the development model that has served it so well for so long,” the report warns. Read more »

At the beginning of May, I wrote about the challenges surrounding Libya’s June 18 National Assembly elections. At the time, there was significant confusion over a proposed election law that would have banned political parties based on religion, ethnicity, or tribe. Since then, the National Transitional Council (NTC) has scrapped the law, but the elections could still be postponed. Last week, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the head of the NTC, announced that the transitional government may delay the elections while some would-be candidates appeal their disqualifications in court (in February, Libya finalized a fairly complex set of eligibility laws for the National Assembly). Read more »

For years, Yemen-watchers have warned that the country is on the brink of disaster. Its wily longtime dictator, Ali Abdullah Saleh, held the country together despite civil war, a separatist rebellion in the north, complex tribal politics, and the spread of al-Qaeda. A year of unrelenting street protests and clashes between rival groups finally pushed Saleh from office in February, and his successor, President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, now has the unenviable task of trying to manage the unmanageable. Over the past year, an al-Qaeda affiliate called Ansar al-Shari’a has taken over territory in impoverished areas in the south of the country, forming several Taliban-style “Islamic emirates.” Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for last week’s horrific suicide bombing which killed nearly a hundred soldiers. Read more »

After months of strenuous campaigning by a myriad of candidates in Egypt’s historic presidential election, it seems that it will all just boil down to a run-off between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military. Early vote counts indicate that the two front-runners are the conservative Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi and Ahmed Shafiq, the Mubarak government’s last prime minister who has run on a platform of stability, unabashedly brandishing his Mubarak-era credentials and cozy relationship with the military. With the majority of the country’s 13,000 polling stations already declaring results, it appears that Morsi has won approximately 26 percent of the vote, followed by Shafiq with 24 percent. The fiery nationalist Hamdin Sabbahi seems to have placed third, but only the first two candidates will compete in a run-off election next month. Read more »

Earlier this week, as NATO leaders at the summit in Chicago pondered Afghanistan’s future, a group of worried Afghan and American women met on the sidelines to discuss strategies for protecting the fragile gains that Afghan women have achieved in the past decade. They are right to be concerned. As Western powers reduce their presence in Afghanistan over the next two years, the Taliban will undoubtedly attempt to reassert their harsh control in Kabul and the north and west of the country where women have made the most gains. Girls’ education will likely continue to be a troubling battlefield. Increased access to education for girls is one of the few bright spots since the overthrow of the Taliban. In 2001, less than 3 percent of girls attended school while today more than 40 percent do. However, Taliban attacks against girls’ schools and teachers occur with alarming frequency. Just in the past month, the Taliban poisoned hundreds of schoolgirls and several teachers in two attacks in a northern province. One attack used powder to contaminate the air in classrooms; another contaminated drinking water. Read more »

Tomorrow and Thursday, Egypt’s 50 million eligible voters will have the opportunity to make history by participating in the country’s first really contested presidential election. As I watch all the strenuous last-minute campaigning, I can’t help but wonder why any of the candidates want the job. Since the constitution has yet to be written, it’s not at all clear what powers the president will have. Moreover, the country’s economy continues to stagger, and whoever is at the helm will inevitably get the blame for deteriorating economic conditions. Read more »

Charles Landow highlights stories and reports on African agriculture, the global middle class, and the G20 economies in this week’s Missing Pieces. Enjoy the reading and the weekend.

• Africa’s Food Security: UNDP this week published the first Africa Human Development Report. The focus: food security. Overall, Africa remains “on the bottom rung” of the Human Development Index (HDI), but this may change, since “nine of the ten countries with the largest gains in HDI” over the past decade are African. The report offers extensive analysis of both the proximate causes of food insecurity and malnutrition, such as low yields and micronutrient deficiencies, and broader factors such as climate change and gender relations. Governance and inequity are crucial, too. As the last chapter argues, “interventions to strengthen food security have greater impact when women, the poor, and the vulnerable have a key role in decision-making.” Read more »