The IMF’s April 2025 Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa presents a clear warning: regional growth is slowing, debt pressures are mounting, and donor assistance is declining. Yet the report outlines critical opportunities particularly in domestic revenue mobilization, structural reform, and private sector activation that can shape a more resilient …
The worst fears about the impact of the rush for bio-fuels are coming true. Evidence that has now surfaced suggests that bio-fuels based on plant sources may actually aggravate, rather than alleviate, the environmental damage being caused by global warming. At least two recent studies done in the United States, …
Ironically, converting new land to produce alternative fuels from crops and grasses can cause emissions of carbon dioxide 420 times more than the annual savings from replacing fossil fuels, according to Minnesota-based scientists. Policymakers in the European Union and the US have identified biofuels as a tool to fight global …
While cutting down rainforests to grow palm oil for biofuels may constitute "madness" (1 December 2007, p 50), burning other vegetable oils is no more sane, nor less damaging to Indonesia's rainforests. Indonesia is expected to increase its palm oil production by more than half over the next 10 years. …
For long, Hevelie Shohe and her family have been growing upland paddy on their traditional 'jhum' land on the hills of this Sema Naga village of Nagaland, but have had little to save. This autumn, the 45 year old farmer is busy taking care of the jatropha saplings she planted …
The un Special Rapporteur on the right to food recently has called for a five-year moratorium on biofuels, calling it a "crime against humanity' to convert food crops to fuel. Cereal prices have already soared in African countries putting pressure on them to import food, Jean Ziegler said. Designated a …
While the country is actively engaged in discussing the nuclear deal, there is little dialogue on another Indo- us deal, which is being quietly implemented. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had signed the Indo- us Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture (kia) in 2005. Singh had called the pact the "harbinger of second …
Jatropha is not the only option for producing biodiesel. The Botanical Survey of India has identified over 300 species with non-edible, oil-rich seeds. As India has a chronic shortage of edible oils and imports it, non-edible oils are recommended for using in transport and other sectors. Species with biodiesel potential …
The opportunities in biodiesel are manifold. A renewable, environment-friendly source of energy is something India desperately needs. There is no question about that. But that doesn't mean the questions aren't there. There is already a strong realisation that the economic reforms of the 1990s haven't helped improve the rural economy. …
In Food or Fuel, the second episode of the Future Food series, Kenyan Farmer and campaigner, Moses Shaha is cynical about ‘biofuels’, energy extracted from crop plants. He journeys through southern Kenya where farmers are starting to grow jatropha, to understand if this biofuel crop is a threat to farmland …
