Gross Domestic Product

Neo colonialism as described by Ian Taylor is as valid then as it is now, but there are alternatives beyond the modern paradigm and we have to run the risk of decolonizing the academy, people are changing and fighting from other ways of life, but our academies? can you hear them? Indigenous peoples, community organizations, peasants and nature are speaking to us. The question is what language and what knowledge we will use to listen and speak them.

Neo colonialism as described by Ian Taylor is as valid then as it is now, but there are alternatives beyond the modern paradigm and we have to run the risk of decolonizing the academy, people are changing and fighting from other ways of life, but our academies? can you hear them? Indigenous peoples, community organizations, peasants and nature are speaking to us. The question is what language and what knowledge we will use to listen and speak them.

For decades, humans have been drawn to space exploration for scientific, security and commercial purposes. Private companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin have undertaken daring projects to commercialize outer space, including tourism, mining space resources and establishing installations and even extra-terrestrial habitats. The allocation of the benefits from outer space is a highly disputed issue, from the early days of space exploration to date. We believe that the issue of taxation, hardly discussed so far, is vital when considering the proper distribution of space benefits

Our ethical conundrum as we think about issues of global distributive justice in the post-pandemic era is that social contract theory fails to provide an adequate framework for conceptualizing duties and obligations of international organizations to individuals, as opposed simply to their member states. The tension comes from the fact that people intuitively have a sense of justice which is offended by the manner in which power is wielded by those at the helm of the global financial order to place the interests of international organizations, banks, and multinational corporations over and above those of individual human beings, particularly those at the margins of the world economy.

This blog aims to present some of the challenges being faced within Africa’s trade landscape and some of the workable policy instruments for overcoming these barriers in the digital post-COVID-19 age. In other words, the broad objective is to propose innovative solutions for enhancing post-COVID-19 economic resilience across businesses and households in a sustainable fashion.

How States proceed with building consensus to create a social contract that facilitates effective taxation, especially in the light of the massive disruptions caused by the pandemic will require continuous engagement by all parties. Success will perhaps depend on how proactively and quickly countries and the international taxation system unlearn old habits and begin to ascribe to the new normal way of doing things.

This symposium addresses issues such as the low tax to GDP ratio in developing states, the broken social contract in these countries and the reforms needed to repair the social contract. The convener, in accepting the invitation of Afronomicslaw to host the tax symposium, called upon tax practitioners, academics, policy experts, philosophers, administrators, to offer insights on the relationship between taxation and the social contract

The COVID-19 crisis is likely to make countries in the global south accumulate more debt in a global economic environment where repayment of current debt will be difficult. The speech by Thomas Sankara on the morality of debt repayment asks us very difficult questions which humanity must collectively confront if debt crises are to become relics of past economics. The collective inability by the global south to assert itself on negotiating tables and to recreate itself in the aftermath of various global crises has been a sad misuse of crises.

Financial institutions should focus on the positive opportunities and learning experiences from this pandemic and plan how they will help their member states adjust to the effects of COVID-19 and attain sustainable development thereafter. This step will be in line with the World Bank’s advice on planning for the economic recovery from COVID-19, in the bid for nations to restart their economic engines and build back stronger and better in the short term and longer term.

The African Union Commission estimated that Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP) could shrink by up to 4.51 percent, resulting in the loss of 20 million jobs. The looming debt crisis further complicates the pandemic-induced economic shock, severely limiting governments' ability to repay their foreign loans and address the current crisis. From 2010 to 2018, the average public debt in sub-Saharan Africa increased by 40%-59% of GDP, making it the continent with the fastest-growing debt accumulation toward sovereign, private and multilateral lenders.