IL FUTURO DELLA NATO

FOCUS

• June 16, 2022. By Atlantic Council. At the upcoming NATO Summit in Madrid, the Alliance’s attention will be on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked and illegal war is transforming how the Euro-Atlantic—not to mention global—community views its security environment. The war is having a profound effect on NATO’s strategy, which is due for a refresh at the summit with Alliance members set to agree on their new Strategic Concept—a critical document that will guide NATO’s political and military development for the foreseeable future. Visualizing the NATO Strategic Concept: Five ways to look at the Alliance’s future

THE SCIENCE OF WHERE

• June 16, 2022. By Linda Peters, Esri. Grenada, a nation small in both size and population, recently recorded a monumental achievement. In 2021, the country became the first to make a digital copy of itself, a 3D model government officials can use for sustainability plans. Climate Change Prompts Grenada to Create the First National Digital Twin

THINK TANKS & GLOBAL NEWS

AROUND THE WORLD

Afghanistan

• June 16, 2022. By Lucas Webber, The Jamestown Foundation. Since the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in August 2021, it has made the transition from a guerrilla force to a governing body, while being faced with an array of severe economic challenges that threaten to undermine its rule (TOLOnews, May 4). In attempt to ameliorate these problems and stimulate the economy, the Taliban is aggressively lobbying for foreign investment (Khaama Press, January 19). The Taliban, meanwhile, is the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP)’s primary foe, and thus ISKP seeks to disrupt and derail anything that would strengthen the Taliban’s position (Terrorism Monitor, May 6). By issuing threats, attacking infrastructure, and striking neighboring countries, ISKP seeks to create a chill effect for already-hesitant foreign states and companies considering investment in Afghanistan. If successful, ISKP could then undermine the Taliban’s hold on power in the country. Islamic State’s Threat to Foreign Commercial Activity in Afghanistan

Africa

• June 16, 2022. By Tristan Reed, World Bank blogs. The prices of several goods, including intermediate inputs such as cement, steel reinforcement bars, urea fertilizer, and broadband internet, are higher on average in the world’s poorest countries, including many in Africa  (Figure 1). This is important for two main reasons: higher prices for intermediate goods can slow economic growth; and this evidence runs counter to the general tendency for prices to rise with national income — a cornerstone of modern international macroeconomics.  Why is the price of cement so high in Africa?

China – Russia

• June 16, 2022. By Paul Goble, The Jamestown Foundation. Chinese firms are building railways into the Russian north in order to secure access to the enormous reserves of natural resources there. From one point of view, these efforts are helping Moscow, which itself lacks the funds to build railways in the far-flung areas east of the Urals and is quite happy to pocket the money earned from the sale of raw materials to China. But from another and broader standpoint, Svobodnaya Pressa commentator Margarita Nikifontova contends, this trend is yet another indication of how far Russia has fallen behind the outside world over the last three decades. The latest developments, she notes, highlight the fact that Moscow cares about little besides money. In turn, China today feels entitled to enter Siberia and the Russian Far East—precisely reminiscent of the European colonial powers’ attitudes toward Africa and Asia in the past (Svobodnaya Pressa, June 9). Given that history, she writes, what many think they can benefit from or ignore actually represents an ominous trend. China Building Railroads Northward, Enriching Moscow but Threatening Russia

European Union – African Union

• June 16, 2022. By Amb. Rama Yade, Atlantic Council. On February 18, leaders of the European Union (EU) and the African Union (AU) convened in Brussels to announce a “renewed partnership” and a Joint Vision for 2030. Six days later, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine upended such long-term planning for Europe and most of the world. The Ukraine war is giving Europe a chance to reset ties with Africa

European Union – Egypt

• June 17, 2022, By HRW.  The European Union and its member states should stop supporting the Egyptian government’s brutal rule and set concrete human rights benchmarks as criteria for progress in relations, Human Rights Watch said today. Egypt’s foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, is expected to meet with the EU foreign affairs High Representative Josep Borrell and EU member states foreign ministers on June 19 and 20, 2022.  European Union: Prioritize Rights in Egypt Meetings

Islamic State Khorasan

• June 16, 2022. By Riccardo Valle, Iftikhar Firdous, The Jamestown Foundation. On May 11, Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP) channels on Telegram shared a new magazine produced by the group’s media wing, al-Azaim Foundation. In Pashto, the title of the magazine is “Khurasan Ghag”, which is the same title as the English magazine “Voice of Khurasan”, a magazine that has regularly been published by the al-Azaim Foundation since late January (Terrorism Monitor, May 6). While the two magazines share the same name, albeit one in Pahsto and the other in English, the contents are considerably different. Islamic State Khorasan Propaganda Targets New Audience with Release of Pashto Magazine Khurasan Ghag

Russia – Ukraine

• June 16, 2022. By Theresa Hitches, Breaking Defense. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan today suggested that the US and close allies would provide embattled Ukrainian forces with further systems capable of launching multiple rockets — to possibly include more of the sophisticated US High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, known as HIMARS. Sullivan suggests yet more MLRS for Ukraine, but only after training
• June 16, 2022. By Caitlin M. Kenney, Defense One. Ukraine needs more weapons, sanctions on Russia, and financial support to end the war as soon as possible, Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S. said Thursday, as others warned that aid is flowing too slowly to help fight the intense artillery battles in the east. What Ukraine Needs: More Arms, Sanctions, and Money, Ambassador Says
• June 16, 2022. By Sergey Sukhankin, The Jamestown Foundation. Moscow’s war of aggression against Ukraine and the ensuing international sanctions have particularly harmed Kaliningrad Oblast, a coastal exclave that is physically separated from Russia and wedged between two European Union and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members. Local sources have reported skyrocketing prices for both consumer and non-consumer goods. For instance, average inflation for construction materials has reached 70 percent (compared to the second quarter of 2021), while prices in some categories increased by 266 percent (Rugrad.online, June 9). Similarly, in terms of foodstuffs, prices increased by 12.8 percent. Such inflation rates have placed the oblast among the top five worst regional economic performers in Russia (Newkaliningrad.ru, June 6). Equally worrying trends for the oblast can be seen in manufacturing and other industries, where average productivity growth rates have decreased by 6.2 percent (compared to 2021). Some industries, such as lumber and furniture production, have even seen their productivity shrink by over 20 percent. Russia’s War in Ukraine and Kaliningrad’s Final Farewell to the Gains of the Past
• June 16, 2022. By Kateryna Stepanenko, Mason Clark, George Barros, and Grace Mappes, ISW. The leaders of Germany, France, Italy, and Romania committed to Ukrainian officials that the West would not demand any concessions from Ukraine to appease Russia and will support Ukraine to the end of the war during a visit to Kyiv on June 16.French President Emmanuel Macron declared that France, Germany, Italy, and Romania are “are doing everything so that Ukraine alone can decide its fate.”[1] Macron added that Ukraine “must be able to win” and pledged to provide six more self-propelled howitzers.[2] German Chancellor Olaf Scholz stated that Germany will continue to provide financial, humanitarian, and weapons assistance for “Ukraine’s war of independence.”[3] Macron, Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, and Romanian President Klaus Iohannis additionally vowed to back Ukraine’s bid to become an official candidate for European Union membership.[4] Sustained Western military support to Ukraine will be essential to enable Ukrainian forces to liberate Russian-occupied territory. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 16
• June 15, 2022. By Dan Ciuriak, CIGI. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shell-shocked the world. The war has monopolized headlines in print and broadcast media and unleashed a torrent of instant analysis and professional commentary. And it has flooded social media platforms. Indeed, I’ve been thinking about how social media has been weaponized, not only during the hostilities but well before this particular conflict erupted, and to what effect. Social Media Warfare Is Being Invented in Ukraine

Sudan 

• June 17, 2022. By HRW. The rights situation in Sudan continues to deteriorate, with ongoing clampdowns against protesters and an increasing number of attacks on civilians in Darfur.  UN Rights Body Should Maintain Scrutiny on Sudan

UK

• June 17, 2022. By RUSI. Journalist and author Oliver Bullough delves into his latest book, Butler to the World, which reveals how Britain came to assume its role as the centre of the offshore economy. Episode 30: Butler to the World: Britain’s Dirty Money Problem

USA

• June 16, 2022. By Brookings. Every day, the federal government enacts impactful policy changes through the executive branch and its agencies. The Brookings Center on Regulation and Markets Regulatory Tracker (“Reg Tracker”) provides background information and status updates on a curated selection of particularly important regulatory changes. Using our tracker, you can learn more about the background of different rules, discover the impact of potential regulations, and monitor a regulation’s progress through rulemaking. We include standard rules as well as guidance documents, executive orders, and other actions across ten key policy areas. While the relaunched Reg Tracker focuses on regulatory changes enacted under Biden, our previous entries tracking regulatory changes during the Trump administration can be accessed through the “Trump archives” checkbox. Tracking regulatory changes in the Biden era
• June 16, 2022. By Alan Berube and Eli Byerly-Duke, Brookings. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States in March 2020, the U.S. economy was riding the crest of a decade-long expansion. The Brookings Metro Monitor found that from 2009 to 2019, 179 of the nation’s 191 largest metro areas had posted growth in jobs, adult employment rates, and median earnings. While that growth did not consistently close significant economic gaps by race and place, a tightening labor market in the late 2010s seemed to finally be spurring more inclusive outcomes in many metro areas. Which metro areas have fared better in the COVID-19 rebound?
• June 13, 2022. By Robert D. Atkinson, ITIF, The World Financial Review. The United States is one of the only developed nations without a national industry competitiveness strategy. Some of this failure stems from a hyper-partisan political environment; but the main culprit is groupthink. Few policymakers, pundits or economists understand U.S. competitiveness problems in ways that lead them to support such a strategy. Too many policymakers, pundits, and purported experts deny there is a problem. And most view the problem and solutions in a way that precludes needed action from being taken. How Flawed Thinking Limits America’s National Industrial Strategy

USA – Russia

• June 16, 2022. By Steven Pifer, Brookings. The June 16, 2021 meeting in Geneva between U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a positive impulse to a bilateral U.S.-Russia relationship that was plumbing post-Cold War depths. Both sides made modest progress in the following months, only to be wholly derailed by Putin’s war of choice against Ukraine. It will be a long time before the U.S.-Russia relationship can approach anything that resembles “normal.”. U.S.-Russia relations, one year after Geneva

DIGITAL, TECH

• June 17, 2022. By Hartwig Schafer, Christine Zhenwei Qiang, World Bank blogs.  When walking around the streets of Kathmandu, you will notice stickers with quick response (QR) codes at stores and restaurants. People can pay businesses by scanning these ubiquitous QR codes with one of the many financial services apps available on their smartphones. This system, set up in 2020, saw widespread use by businesses and consumers in Nepal during the COVID-19 pandemic, when social distancing meant that people wanted contactless modes of payment. Today, one can use QR codes to make purchases at a large grocery store in Nepal or buy something from a local handcart vendor. Towards a Thriving Digital Economy in South Asia
• June 16, 2022. By Souleymane Coulibaly, Woubet Kassa, Albert Zeufack, World Bank blogs. Africa faces a continuously changing global trade environment, bringing new challenges and opportunities for increasing growth and reducing poverty. The proliferation of regional trade agreements often at the expense of the global trading system (WTO), the fourth Industrial Revolution and the subsequent rise of labor-saving technologies, the rise of Asia as the new economic frontier, the increased fragmentation of production and rapid changes in global value chains (GVCs) dominate the emerging trends. Re-engineering African trade with the European Union and United States: Success Requires Reform on Both Sides
• June 16, 2022. By Megha Mukin, Alex Chunet, World Bank blogs. Cities act as escalators out of poverty, as Edward Glaeser demonstrates. And yet, this very function drives poorer immigrants into urban regions – in search of jobs or access to better public services. More than half the world’s population now lives in urban areas , but most social assistance programs in developing countries have traditionally concentrated on the rural poor, with the bulk of past efforts on proper identification and targeting. The pandemic has shone a spotlight on the plight of the urban poor. When the pandemic hit, in the face of harsh lockdowns, the urban poor faced sudden shocks to their income and consumption. Governments in several countries were caught unprepared, with many lacking data on important questions – who are the urban poor? where do they live? how best to find them, and help them? Mapping urban poverty from space
• June 16, 2022. By Alexandra Kelley, Nextgov. $100 million from the federal Technology Modernization Fund will be allocated toward improving customer experiences for civilian end users interacting with U.S. government digital services.  Tech Modernization Fund Launches Fresh $100 Million for CX Projects
• June 16, 2022. By Bram Abramson, Fenwick Mckelvey, CIGI. Vizio is one of the bestselling TV brands in the United States. Yet selling data about users and their watching habits is one of its core businesses. A television manufacturer that becomes a big data business is no anomaly. Today, consuming media involves users being watched and tracked in ways the audience measurement industries of old could only have dreamed of. With debate closing on Bill C-11, the Online Streaming Act, there is one major amendment not on the table. Viewers need better data and privacy rights. Canada’s Online Streaming Act Needs a Privacy Clause
• June 16, 2022. By Gillian Diebold, Center for Data Innovation. Accurate and accessible environmental data plays an important role in formulating effective environmental policy. Data on air and water quality, soil contamination, microplastic pollution, and more can reveal insights about how the environment impacts human health in a community, as well as which communities are most vulnerable to climate change-related threats. But environmental agencies do not sufficiently monitor data in some places. As a result, these communities often rely on anecdotal evidence of the environmental dangers they face and cannot articulate or prove for regulatory purposes the extent of these risks to local government officials and environmental regulators. Citizen science, or public participation in scientific research, can supplement data in otherwise under-monitored areas and improve understanding of climate-related and environmental issues. Supporting and incorporating citizen science data production and collection efforts into official statistics will help fill in gaps in monitoring and empower groups in otherwise neglected areas with the information to advocate for themselves when harms arise. Citizen Science and Crowdsourced Data Can Improve Environmental Data in the United States
• June 16, 2022. By Shania Kennedy, Health IT Analytics. Digital primary care platform K Health in collaboration with Mayo Clinic Platform, Mayo Clinic’s portfolio of digital healthcare initiatives, launched a personalized hypertension treatment algorithm designed to provide real-time clinical decision support and improve treatment plans. Mayo Clinic, K Health Collaboration Unveils Hypertension Treatment Algorithm
• June 14, 2022. By Robert D. Atkinson, ITIF, Korea Times. Nations are in a fierce win-lose competition for global market share in advanced, traded-sector technology industries, because winning enables not only prosperity, but economic and national security―especially for allied nations where China’s gain often comes at their loss. As Rob Atkinson writes in the Korea Times, Korea’s advanced-industry performance over the last quarter-century has been superlative, lagging only behind Taiwan. Korea’s Advanced Industry Success Story
• June 14, 2022. By Robert Fay, David Dodge, Serge Dupont, Mark Jewett, John Murray, Keldon Bester, CIGI. A growing number of countries around the world are considering or implementing retail central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) that could be used by both consumers and businesses. Before Canada joins its peers in this endeavour, it can learn from their experiences. This conference report is based on an April 2022 workshop attended by Canadian and international experts. The discussion focused on the international backdrop and what can be learned from global leaders in CBDCs, to determine next steps for Canada and to assess the legal and regulatory changes required to support a Canadian CBDC. Deciding on a Digital Dollar: The Necessary Steps for Canada
• June 13, 2022. By Morgan Stevens, Center for Data Innovation. Climate activists with Possible, a U.K.-based environmental charity organization, have created a series of data visualizations depicting noise pollution in Paris, New York, and London. The visualizations show the levels of noise pollution across the cities as shades of purple, with higher levels represented by darker colors. The visualizations include audio recordings to demonstrate the level of noise found in each location.  Visualizing Noise Pollution

DEFENSE, MILITARY, SECURITY, CYBER

• June 17, 2022. By  Vivienne Machi, Defense News. The French army is looking for new robots to provide increased mass and endurance on the future battlefield, but is still working out the details of what kinds of robots will fit the bill. French army honing requirements for future ‘Vulcain’ robotic capability
• June 17, 2022. By  Rep. Rob Wittman, Defense News. When U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin attempted to lay out the Biden administration’s stance toward Taiwan in his recent speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, he reaffirmed the president’s commitment to the status quo across the Taiwan Strait. Austin also stated that “we do not seek a new Cold War, an Asian NATO.” But in the same speech, Austin demonstrated the Biden administration’s failed hope of having it both ways in the Indo-Pacific region. Austin also used Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an example of the “consequences” that Beijing would suffer in the wake of any attempt to violently subjugate Taiwan. What it looks like when competing with China comes last
• June 17, 2022. By James Coker, Info Security. The UK government has proposed new data laws designed to boost economic growth and innovation, in addition to plans to clamp down on nuisance calls and minimize cookie pop-ups online. UK Proposes Post-Brexit Data Laws to Boost Innovation
• June 16, 2022. By Mariam Baksh, Nextgov. The Justice Department touted its organization of a workshop with the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation—or Eurojust—to partner in the struggle to deter perpetrators of ransomware, while pushing for more resources to help other nations prosecute those leveraging cryptocurrencies to mask their illicit activity. Justice Pursues Collaboration to Fight Cyber Crime with EU Member States
• June 16, 2022. By Frank Konkel, Nextgov. More Americans than ever are working remotely, and it’s proving to be a major challenge for IT professionals working to keep public sector networks secured, according to a report released this week by IT firm SolarWinds. Report: Hybrid Workforce is Making Public Sector IT Management More Difficult
• June 16, 2022. By Stephanie Carvin, CIGI. Since the Canadian government’s decision to bar China’s state-owned telecom giant from Canada’s 5G networks, surprisingly little has been said about the matter. Banning Huawei Was the Start, Not the End, of Protecting Cyber Infrastructure
• June 16, 2022. By Christina Mackenzie, Breaking Defense. NATO’s Next Generation Rotorcraft Capability (NGRC) project officially launched in Brussels today, with six European NATO states agreeing to allocate funds of €26.7m ($28.2m) to define their military’s requirements for a new medium multi-role helicopter to replace those currently in their inventories. Six NATO nations team up to launch helicopter program eyed by Euro, US industry
• June 16, 2022. By Jaspreet Gill, Breaking Defense. The Russia-Ukraine conflict has expanded global military use of commercial satellite communications while raising questions about how much insight US European Command has into the commercial SATCOM industry, EUCOM’s chief information officer said this week.  Ukraine war raises questions about military insight into commercial SATCOM
• June 16, 2022. By Jacqueline Feldscher, Defense One. The Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday approved $817 billion for the Defense Department in fiscal 2023, topping the Biden administration’s request by $45 billion and setting up a discrepancy with counterparts in the House. Senate Panel Approves $45B Boost To 2023 Defense Topline
• June 16, 2022. By Marla Keenan and Andrew Hyde, Defense One. The wrenching images and stories from Ukraine should spur NATO—a trans-Atlantic, defensive, military and political alliance—to think harder about how it would protect its citizens and critical infrastructure during a high-intensity, state-on-state conflict. Alliance leaders would be wise to press this point during the upcoming summit in Madrid, where the organization is slated to adopt a new strategic concept and agree on a definition of human security. NATO Needs to Move Protection of Civilians to Center Stage
• June 16, 2022. By  Stephen Losey and Megan Eckstein, Defense News. The Air Force could finally get its chance to start retiring some of its older A-10 Warthog attack planes. A-10 retirements, more Air Force F-35s in Senate defense policy bill
• June 16, 2022. By  Bryant Harris and Leo Shane III, Defense News. Senate Armed Services Committee members added $45 billion to the White House’s defense spending target for fiscal 2023 in their annual defense authorization bill, unveiled Thursday, setting up a congressional showdown in the coming weeks over total military spending. Senators back $45 billion boost in defense spending for FY23
• June 16, 2022. By  Megan Eckstein, Defense News. U.S. lawmakers introduced a bill this week that would establish a program to train Royal Australian Navy officers in operating nuclear-powered submarines, as Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. work on a collaborative path toward developing and fielding the boat type for the Pacific ally. New bill would establish AUKUS submarine training program
• June 16, 2022. By Stephen Losey, Defense News. The Air Force is on track to buy and start fielding its first electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft that could carry passengers or cargo under the Agility Prime program in 2023. US Air Force’s ‘flying car’ coming to an exercise near you
• June 16, 2022. By  Colin Demarest, Defense News. The warren of networks, logistics and shared information American and allied forces rely on as they funnel resources into Ukraine to help the country beat back a Russian invasion is providing valuable insights for one of the U.S. Air Force’s most pressing modernization efforts. How war in Ukraine is informing future US Air Force networks
• June 16, 2022. By Courtney Albon, Defense News. The Space Development Agency wants to buy 10 satellites to support a new on-orbit experimentation effort. Space Development Agency plans for ‘enduring’ satellite experimentation testbed
• June 16, 2022. By  José Higuera, Defense News. Argentina has kicked-started the process for procuring four Boeing-made CH-47 Chinook heavy-lift helicopters from the U.S., military sources in Buenos Aires have told Defense News. Argentina chooses to buy US-made Chinook over Russian Mi-26
• June 16, 2022. By Pavel Luzin, The Jamestown Foundation. After more than three months of its undeclared war of aggression against Ukraine, Russia fired over 2,100 cruise missiles and short-range ballistic missiles at targets inside the embattled country. Now it is facing a growing deficit of these types of stand-off weapons (Twitter.com/DefenceHQ, June 11). And military observers and strategists are increasingly questioning how long it will take or even if Russia will ever be able to fully restore its depleted missile arsenal. Russian Challenges in Missile Resupply
• June 16, 2022. By Jorma Arvidson, The Jamestown Foundation. As a reaction to Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, Finland and Sweden abandoned their long tradition of military non-alignment to seek security through membership in NATO. Both countries submitted their membership applications to NATO’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on May 18, 2022. While the overwhelming majority of NATO member states applauded the prospect of enlargement with the two Nordic states, one expressed reservations–Türkiye (“Turkey” has formally changed its name to “Türkiye”). Terrorism Accusations from Türkiye Stymie Swedish and Finnish NATO Membership
• June 16, 2022. By Emily Harding, James Andrew Lewis, Suzanne Spaulding, Rose Butchart, Jake Harrington, Devi Nair, CSIS. The federal government’s latest guidance aimed at improving the nation’s cybersecurity demonstrates a commendable shift in priorities—moving away from perimeter defense and firewalls and instead embracing zero trust architecture (ZTA) to create resilient systems. For the government to succeed in this transition, it must recognize that ZTA is more about mindset and culture than it is a standardized roadmap. The government should act with urgency to adopt this mindset and specific plans for implementation, even while emphasizing that implementation will be an ongoing process over several years. “Never Trust, Always Verify”: Federal Migration to ZTA and Endpoint Security
• June 16, 2022. By Katherine Walla, Atlantic Council. NATO should have a few objectives for its summit in Madrid later this month, said former NATO Secretary General George Robertson: “weapons, weapons, weapons—and a free, democratic Ukraine.”. How NATO can stick together and keep the pressure on Russia, according to four former Alliance chiefs

HORIZONS

• June 17, 2022. By Benjamin Herzberg, Daphne Yong-D’Hervé, World Bank blogs. For refugees, building a new life in a host country is filled with challenges. They face difficulties finding jobs, and they face barriers to starting a business. They may find themselves cut off from credit and investment—and from other products and services that are so critically important. All of this limits their ability to build a better livelihood. Refugees mean business: the role of the private sector in creating economic opportunities for the forcibly displaced
• June 17, 2022. By Marcello Estevao, Diego Rivetti, David Mihalyi, World Bank blogs. Rising debt and record-high commodity prices are tempting many developing countries to pledge their natural resources to secure the financing they so urgently need.  They should tread carefully: a renewed embrace of resource-backed loans could backfire on them.  Developing economies should think hard about taking on resource-backed loans
• June 17, 2022. By Laurie A. Tannous, World Bank blogs. The concept of public-private partnerships (PPPs), until recently, has been fairly simple—public and private entities working together with a common goal or mutual benefit. The term is most often used to describe partnerships between government and the private sector where the partners would share both the risks and rewards associated with their relationship. Yet, as multi-country public-private projects gain momentum with the increase in trade, transportation, and infrastructure for cross-border logistics, they now have to navigate their own share of very different legal and regulatory environments. Navigating cross-border PPPs
• June 17, 2022. By Alex Vershinin, RUSI. The war in Ukraine has proven that the age of industrial warfare is still here. The massive consumption of equipment, vehicles and ammunition requires a large-scale industrial base for resupply – quantity still has a quality of its own. The mass scale combat has pitted 250,000 Ukrainian soldiers, together with 450,000 recently mobilised citizen soldiers against about 200,000 Russian and separatist troops. The effort to arm, feed and supply these armies is a monumental task. Ammunition resupply is particularly onerous. For Ukraine, compounding this task are Russian deep fires capabilities, which target Ukrainian military industry and transportation networks throughout the depth of the country. The Russian army has also suffered from Ukrainian cross-border attacks and acts of sabotage, but at a smaller scale. The rate of ammunition and equipment consumption in Ukraine can only be sustained by a large-scale industrial base. The Return of Industrial Warfare
• June 17, 2022. By Creon Butler, Emma Ross, Chatham House. Although the COVID-19 response saw remarkable institutional innovations focused on controlling the pandemic once it had begun – notably the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) with its vaccine arm COVAX – the pandemic still frustratingly demonstrated once more the enormous costs of failing to invest adequately in prevention and control measures and other global health activities to protect the world. New approaches needed to unlock global health funding
• June 16, 2022. By Itai Agur, Xavier Lavayssière and Germán Villegas Bauer, IMF blog. Most of the world’s central banks have already agreed they should help fight climate change, a critical challenge that necessitates reductions in both energy consumption, which is our focus here, and the carbon emissions associated with the energy consumed. How Crypto and CBDCs Can Use Less Energy Than Existing Payment Systems
• June 16, 2022. By Anton Korinek, Brookings. This paper develops an economic framework to evaluate the impact of a technological innovation on labor demand and inequality, decomposing the effects into five channels that are quantified using data that corporations routinely collect in their accounting and financial planning and analysis departments: (i) the direct channel captures how the innovation changes factor inputs for given output; (ii) the demand channel reflects how pricing decisions affect product demand; and (iii) the factor reallocation effect captures how redundant factors are redeployed in the economy. When supply chain effects matter, (iv) the vertical channel traces the effects on factor demand along a firm’s value chain. Moreover, when there are significant within-industry demand effects,(v) the horizontal channel analyzes how factor demand among competitors and providers of complements is affected. The framework informs companies, policymakers, and civil society about what types of innovations and policy environments are desirable to deliver shared prosperity. This paper also provides a sample application of how an automation tool introduced in the fast food industry would generate a redistribution from unskilled to skilled workers. How innovation affects labor markets: An impact assessment
• June 15, 2022. By Mariano Moszoro and Mauricio Soto, IMF blog. High-speed roads that can carry goods to customers in far-off markets raise productivity, reduce poverty and are an important contributor to sustainable and inclusive economic development. This is why economists spend time trying to assess the state of the world’s roads through surveys and the like. Where Are the World’s Fastest Roads?

Le interviste di The Science of Where Magazine

• INDO-PACIFICO: COMPETIZIONE TECNOLOGICA, CRESCITA ECONOMICA, SICUREZZA. L’OPINIONE DI SORABH GUPTA (ICAS)
• MODULARE LE TECNOLOGIE PER UN FUTURO AGRO-SOSTENIBILE. A COLLOQUIO CON TIM BENTON (CHATHAM HOUSE)