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Will Nepal cash out?
Like much of the world, Nepal saw digital payments soar during the pandemic.
Tulsi Rauniyar, a young Nepalese documentary photographer, experienced the transition firsthand. With COVID making human touch a big concern, e-commerce and cashless transactions became more commonplace — so much so that Rauniyar herself rarely uses cash anymore. This technological globalization is increasingly helping female entrepreneurs and businesswomen succeed in Nepal. But it still needs to reach rural areas — where many hard-working women are unaware of these transformative technologies.
Watch our recent livestream discussion on remittances and other tools for economic empowerment.
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Haiti stuck in a "vicious circle," says IMF economist
Amid the current global turmoil, one country that's definitely no stranger to crises is Haiti. Haitians will surely feel the pinch of rising prices of things like food and fuel, International Monetary Fund economist Nicole Laframboise says during a Global Stage conversation with GZERO Media in partnership with Microsoft.
With more than 60% of the population under the poverty line and food inflation up 40%, it's going to be "extremely difficult for the poor," she told Shari Friedman, Eurasia Group's Managing Director for Climate and Sustainability.
Haiti didn't suffer as much from the economic shock of the pandemic as other countries because it doesn't trade much nor have a big tourism sector.
But recently the much wider concern has been what Laframboise describes as "homegrown" political instability — which undermines the ability of the government and of the IMF to provide advice on macroeconomic policy.
"It's hard. It's hard for them, and it's hard ... for us." So, what do countries like Haiti do when they can't borrow money to pay for food when it gets more expensive?
They often have no choice but to print money, which makes inflation rise even more.
"It's kind of like a vicious circle," says Laframboise, "but we are working with the authorities to help them break out of this circle."
This interview was part of a series of Global Stage interviews with international thought leaders at the World Bank and IMF spring meetings. Watch the Global Stage livestream with several of these thought leaders here.
Podcast: The Ukraine war is crippling the world's food supply, says food security expert Ertharin Cousin
Listen: The Ukraine war and sanctions against Russia have created a perfect storm that will lead to a global food supply crisis, Ertharin Cousin, former head of the UN World Food Programme, tells Ian Bremmer on the GZERO World podcast. Russia and Ukraine account for almost a third of the world's wheat exports. All nations could be affected since these are global commodities, but developing countries that rely on those imports are most at risk. The disruptions could double the amount of people that went hungry during the pandemic, and since agriculture is a seasonal business, the worst may be yet to come.
Many low-income nations will also struggle because they can't afford subsidies to feed their people. The conflict has put the international community in a tough spot between causing hunger and punishing Russia, says Cousin, who now serves as CEO of a non-profit organization, Food Systems for the Future. She recommends the West offer developing countries financial support to deal with the food crisis since "we need to realize we're not the only game in town"; China may also see this an opportunity to build alliances by offering help.
Listen to Ian Bremmer's interview with Ertharin Cousin, former head of the UN World Food Programme.
Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.- The Graphic Truth: Cereal killer — wheat prices amid Ukraine crisis ... ›
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Want global equality? Get more people online
We think we live in a digital-first world — but there's no "digital" at all for 37% of the global population.
That's a big problem in today's economy, where you'll miss out on many opportunities for advancement if you're not connected. The digital divide is thus widening the equality gap.
Being offline "places an automatic limit on your ability to be productive and has major ramifications for our society," says Vickie Robinson, head of Microsoft's Airband Initiative to expand broadband access throughout the developing world.
Robinson believes major progress on connectivity is crucial in order to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals by the 2030 deadline because getting people online can be a catalyst to achieve all the other SDGs.
"If we really want to tackle some of these big problems and meet these SDGs in a fundamental way ... getting our arms around digital access for all is a way that we can do it."
GZERO's Global Stage is nominated for a Webby Award! Vote for us
Learn more about Global Stage: https://www.gzeromedia.com/global-stage/
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After COVID, Belgian small business began to bloom
Isabelle Nijs runs a hair salon in Begijnendijk, Belgium, about an hour’s drive to the northeast of Brussels. Nijs struggled to keep her business going through the pandemic during lockdowns and the lack of customers that brought. Rents and insurance premiums continued going up, but she didn’t get any financial support to meet the rising costs. Now, with people coming out of COVID restrictions, her business has begun to bloom … only to be impacted yet again, this time by the war in Ukraine. Now, she’s also dealing with supply chain issues, with prices going up and quality going down, not to mention long wait times.
Watch more from our conversation on how small businesses can thrive after COVID, which was recorded live on March 22, 2022.
Waiting for foot traffic to return in Tokyo
Shizuka Takahashi wants Tokyo’s foot traffic to return. Having face-to-face interactions with her customers means everything to her — in fact, the desire to interact with people is why she opened her Tokyo shop, PuRe Juice Bar. She got the idea while living in New York City, where people know and love smoothies. In Tokyo, however, the juice culture is less common. Takahashi opened in 2019 only to be hit by reduced sales as a result of COVID-19. By learning to market herself throughout the pandemic, and with government aid, she’s been able to keep her company afloat. Now she’s looking forward to helping her Japanese customers get hooked on healthy juice drinks.
Watch more from our conversation on how small businesses can thrive after COVID, which was recorded live on March 22, 2022.
How can we help small businesses recover from the pandemic? Watch live today at 12 pm ET
TODAY AT 12 PM ET: COVID-19 has changed the way we shop, work, and live. While tough for all of us, it’s been brutal for small- and medium-sized businesses, which, according to the World Bank, make up a whopping 90% of all businesses and 50% of employment worldwide.
JJ Ramberg, co-founder of Goodpods and former host of MSNBC's Your Business, will moderate "Big Impact: Small Businesses and Global Pandemic Recovery," a livestream discussion about the path to stable, sustainable growth for small businesses.
Participants include:
- Ian Bremmer, President and Founder, Eurasia Group and GZERO Media
- Jeni Mundy, Global Head Merchant Sales & Acquiring, Visa
- Tom Sullivan, VP of Small Business Policy, US Chamber of Commerce
- Chris Tsakalakis, CEO, Kiva
- Veronique Willems, Secretary General, SMEunited
Big Impact: Small Businesses and Global Pandemic Recovery
Tuesday, March 22, 2022 | 12:00 pm ET
How did we get to today's supply chain mess?
The supply chain mess is hitting all of us. Inflation is now the highest it's been in over 30 years.
The costs of food, gas and housing are going through the roof. What's more, almost everything made outside of America is now in short supply — like semiconductors for our cars.
Why is this happening? A lot of it has to do with the pandemic. Asian factories had to shut down or thought there would be less demand for their stuff. So did shipping companies. But then online shopping surged, and now there's a lot of pent-up demand to spend all the cash we saved during COVID.
But it's not just the pandemic. Before COVID, companies kept limited inventories to save costs and fatten up profit margins. And now we're all suffering the consequences.
Watch this episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer: Inflation nation: What's driving US prices higher?
Subscribe to GZERO on YouTube to be the first to see new episodes of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer: https://bit.ly/2TxCVnY