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Trade unions are calling for the Centenary Declaration to define the parameters of a new social contract between governments, businesses and workers, recognising that the future of production is not something that will be determined by technology, rather that it will be shaped by political, social and economic choices.The context for these choices is indeed troubling. There are 300 million “working poor” – people who are in work but don’t earn enough to lift them out of poverty. Official unemployment globally is around 190 million people, with large numbers of younger people entering the labour market only to find there is no job for them.

It’s people, not technology, that will decide the future of work

By: EBR | Friday, May 10, 2019

Nothing is written in stone. Technology itself will not determine the way forward. It’s all about the choices that governments, businesses, workers and their unions and societies as a whole make

Global median age is projected to surpass 40 years by the end of the century, and it will be considerably higher in many Western nations, especially in Japan and Europe.With the future demographic composition looking very different than today, it will be fascinating to see how the economy responds to these potential tailwinds. Further, it will be even more interesting to see what role automation will play as the old-age dependency ratio hits historic highs.

Longer lifespans are changing the shape of the world’s population pyramid

By: EBR | Friday, May 10, 2019

The world is in the midst of a notable period of demographic transition

The technological innovation ameliorates the asymmetric information constraint faced by conventional banks in lending to the collateral-less poor. The movement of cash into electronic accounts tracks, for the first time for the unbanked, the real-time history of their financial transactions. Using algorithms, these records provide evolving individual credit-scores that eventually allow users to obtain a pathway to formal financial services accessed only through a mobile phone, e.g. to interest-bearing savings accounts, small loans, and insurance products. Hire purchase credit is possible through mobile money, permitting secure, remote purchases of costly durable items on a pay-as-you-use basis.

The economics of mobile money: Harnessing the transformative power of technology to benefit the global poor

By: EBR | Friday, May 10, 2019

Mobile money has transformed the landscape of financial inclusion in developing and emerging market countries, leapfrogging the provision of formal banking services

NATO and the US are not any longer important to Germany as they used to be. Irritation about President Trump influences German foreign politics. But the recent decision by the Merkel government is more profound. Not only Republicans as President Bush Jr and late Senator John McCain called Germany to show its commitment to NATO by spending 2% of GDP on defence, as the NATO rule is. But also Democrats including President Obama asked for it.

Wants Germany to get rid of NATO?

By: N. Peter Kramer | Friday, May 3, 2019

Is NATO dying? Walter Russel Mead, leading columnist of the Wall Street Journal, says yes

The bar is even higher for the banking sector, which has always struggled, some would say understandably, to escape the mistrust of the public. My point is that, more than ever, a reputation shock could be enough to bring down even MNCs whose resilience has never been questioned before. We speak maybe too much about unicorns these days, but we forget the other side of the "creative destruction": there are not only unicorns, but also "dinosaurs" on the brink of business extinction.

Nordic banks, scandals and reputation rebuilding

By: EBR | Thursday, May 2, 2019

The story is simple: the most important Nordic banks are involved in a Baltic money laundering scandal that saw hundreds of billions of Russian-tainted euros flooding the international market in the absence of proper supervision and risk assessment

Against the backdrop, Taiwan urges WHO to respond favorably to the widespread calls for Taiwan’s inclusion in the World Health Assembly and related technical meetings, mechanisms and activities. WHO should abide by its own principles of inclusiveness and universal participation. Taiwan is a worthy and reliable partner that can help countries around the world achieve the meaningful goal of universal health coverage by 2030.

Taiwan can help countries around the world achieve universal health coverage by 2030

By: EBR | Thursday, May 2, 2019

At a time when achieving universal health coverage has never been more urgent and important, Taiwan has actively sought to share its first-rate experience in healthcare reform

Success rests on the ability to engage the entire leadership team and other key stakeholders around a common vision and shared goals. This becomes critically important at various points throughout planning and execution. These groups will not only help to solve problems and navigate roadblocks, but they will also become evangelizers of your strategic vision, helping to communicate it broadly and inspire greater followership among stakeholders.

7 skills every leader needs in times of disruption

By: EBR | Tuesday, April 23, 2019

In our current times of great change, people are questioning what it means to be a leader and rethinking what we expect from those chosen to lead

Greenpeace was among the enterprises from which we abstracted our business model of SDM. They exist to protect and promote the interests of specific communities. SDM are not primarily in the business of telling the public what matters. They tell people who already know what matters how they can deal with it. We’ve heard such audiences referred to as “silos” by journalists. Greenpeace has 2.8 million donating members and millions of social media followers. That looked to us like a major core audience.

How Strategic Alliances Can Strengthen Investigative Journalism

By: EBR | Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Collaborations between journalists and NGOs forge new avenues for mutual value creation – and social impact

According to Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, FinTech’s potential is to unbundle banking into its core functions - such as settling payments and allocating capital. For central bankers and regulators who are monitoring the sector, the growth of fintech is akin to any other disruptive technology - that is, will it lead to financial instability? Most fintech start-ups are not regulated as much as traditional financial institutions.

Don’t underestimate the power of the fintech revolution

By: EBR | Friday, April 19, 2019

History is replete with people’s failures to anticipate the impact of technological change. Are we making the same mistake with financial technology (fintech)?

Certainly, education does involve mastering the essential body of knowledge and skills in the student’s field of interest. Students doing a Business degree, for example, will need to know how to put together a marketing plan, analyze financial statements and construct budgets. I believe, however, that there are several reasons why students should not base their decision about where to study too narrowly on what they’ll learn and forget about how they’ll learn.The most important skills companies are looking are the ones that cut across disciplines.

Fostering Tomorrow’s Agile Self-Learners

By: EBR | Friday, April 19, 2019

Students in Greece and their parents tend to ask the same questions when they investigate options for higher education

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is causing a large-scale decline in some roles as they become redundant or automated. According to the 2018 Future of Jobs Report, 75 million jobs are expected to be displaced by 2022 in 20 major economies. At the same time, technological advances and new ways of working could also create 133 million new roles, driven by large-scale growth in new products and services that would allow people to work with machines and algorithms to meet the demands of demographic shifts and economic changes.

We need a reskilling revolution. Here’s how to make it happen

By: EBR | Friday, April 19, 2019

As the world faces the transformative economic, social and environmental challenges of Globalization 4.0, it has never been more important to invest in people

One day Britain will become a normal country again, respected and respectful, with responsible politicians who don’t think flirting with the Far Right is fun or prefer to find solace in colonial fantasies instead of facing up to life in a difficult 21st century. For the moment, let’s stop the Brexit obsession.

It’s time for a break from Brexit, Trump and Europe’s populists

By: EBR | Tuesday, April 16, 2019

It’s been a tough few months. Everyone is exhausted, nerves are frayed, patience is running out. No one is at their best

His Likud Party has won 36 of the 120 seats in Israel’s parliament, according to final results of Tuesday’s election, putting him in pole position to form a new coalition. But, it will only have a slim majority against an opposition that is likely to be led by the centrist-left Blue and White party, which won 35 seats.What coalition will Netanyahu seek? Most likely, a replica of his outgoing right-wing government. In his victory speech, Netanyahu said he intends to form his new cabinet with right-wing and religious parties. Next step is that Israel’s president consults with the leaders of each party about their preference for prime minister.

After Israel elections, Netanyahu can form his fifth government

By: EBR | Monday, April 15, 2019

Israel elected Netanyahu for the fifth time in 23 years. The most impressive achievement is, that he won 36 Knesset seats as the man about to be charged in three corruption cases

The IMF reckons Europe’s under-34s have less than 5% of the net wealth. Although as individuals we all welcome greater longevity, its downside is that parents no longer pass on their assets and savings at the same rate as before.Tinkering with taxation is the obvious way to correct this, along with doing far more to stimulate fertility in a Europe where couples average only 1.6 children. Revolutionary steps to subsidise childcare and home ownership could help to defuse the demographic time-bomb.The snag is that democracy is set to be the victim of demography. Across the EU, the under-40s will – within a decade or two – be outnumbered by their elders, and so most probably outvoted. Introducing policies that favour workers at the expense of pensioners is likely to be difficult, if not impossible.

Calling all meps: Think big to defy populist scare-mongering

By: EBR | Tuesday, April 9, 2019

Giles Merritt calls on mainstream candidates for the European Parliament to challenge populist rivals by focusing on the approaching ’generation wars’ due to Europe’s ageing

But after many nights in emergency rooms and too-long stays in hospitals, of watching my nieces slowly lose their father, I got a glimpse of what community looks like. It was the people who turned up before they were asked, to do things they didn’t have time to do. Neighbors who collected kids from school and came to hospitals to sit. Friends who stayed. Groups of people who materialized to make lunch for four kids for months because their parents couldn’t.

The only metric of success that really matters is the one we ignore

By: EBR | Friday, March 22, 2019

On a blustery March day five years ago, I locked arms with my mother and walked into a church in Maplewood, New Jersey to bury my brother. Bagpipes played “Amazing Grace.”

Yet in reality, there are several examples in which Germany undermines the architecture that was built after World War II and which brought stability, security, and prosperity to Europe. The first is NATO. Germany is not pulling its weight when it comes to a serious commitment to burden sharing. Burden sharing is not a Trump mantra. Since the end of the Cold War, when defense budgets across Europe were slashed, Washington began to warn the Europeans that they had to spend more.

The Credibility of German Multilateralism

By: EBR | Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Berlin’s consistent calls to protect multilateralism in the wake of President Donald Trump’s verbal attacks on the post-1945 institutions often ring hollow

In their 2011 study of more than 45,000 crash victims over 11 years, researchers from the University of Virginia found women drivers were much more likely to be injured in a crash than men. They said this was because car safety features had been designed for men. The positioning of head restraints, as well as women’s shorter height, different neck strength and musculature, as well as their preferred seating position, meant they were more susceptible to injury.

7 surprising and outrageous stats about gender inequality

By: EBR | Friday, March 15, 2019

Around the world, the achievements of women are being celebrated on International Women’s Day, which began back in 1911. But the day also highlights the work that remains to be done in order to achieve gender parity

Against the backdrop of news stories about how the web is misused, it’s understandable that many people feel afraid and unsure whether the web really is a force for good. But given how much the web has changed in the past 30 years, it would be defeatist and unimaginative to assume that the web as we know it can’t be changed for the better in the next 30.

The web is 30 years old. What better time to fight for its future?

By: EBR | Friday, March 15, 2019

Today, 30 years on from my original proposal for an information management system, half the world is online. It’s a moment to celebrate how far we’ve come, but also an opportunity to reflect on how far we have yet to go

The Belt and Road Initiative is the most significant diplomatic project of the twenty-first century, the equivalent of the mid-twentieth-century founding of the United Nations and World Bank plus the Marshall Plan all rolled into one. The crucial difference: BRI was conceived in Asia and launched in Asia and will be led by Asians. This is the story of one entire side of the planet—the Asian side—and its impact on the twenty-first-century world.

Why we're living in the 'Asian Century'

By: EBR | Friday, March 15, 2019

When we look back from 2100 at the date on which the cornerstone of an Asian-led world order began, it will be 2017. In May of that year, sixty-eight countries representing two-thirds of the world’s population and half its GDP gathered in Beijing for the first Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) summit

Autocracy flourished in 2018 because when Washington pursues a so-called realist policy of global retrenchment, it looks for dictators it thinks it can rely on. This was Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger’s strategy in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The famous Nixon doctrine, which aimed at reducing U.S. commitments overseas, put all of Washington’s chips on the Shah of Iran and the Saudi monarchy.

Springtime for Strongmen

By: EBR | Tuesday, March 12, 2019

The world’s authoritarians are on the march—and the West helped pave the way

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EU Actually

Guterres: the one and a half Celsius is dead

N. Peter KramerBy: N. Peter Kramer

On the eve of the UN climate conference COP30 in Brazil, the word was finally out.

Europe

Disunited European Parliament calls off EU budget rebellion

Disunited European Parliament calls off EU budget rebellion

"The Commission’s proposals are quite good and meet our demands," said EPP MEP Herbert Dorfmann, while sources close to the file said centre-left S&D lawmakers were unhappy with the suggestions.

Business

China to loosen chip export ban to Europe after Netherlands row

China to loosen chip export ban to Europe after Netherlands row

Beijing has said it will loosen a chip export ban it imposed after Dutch authorities took over Nexperia, a Chinese-owned chipmaker based in the Netherlands.

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