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Significance Competition between the jihadist groups remains tense and insecurity is being stoked further by intercommunal conflict over land and water resources that overstretched security forces are struggling to contain. Impacts Economic hardship will increase in the Lake Chad region amid the effects of climate change and economic slowdown due to the pandemic. Jihadist dominance in the region is almost certain to swing back and forth between ISWAP and Boko Haram. The use of the Boko Haram moniker to describe all jihadist operations poses challenges to accurate attribution of attacks.


Significance Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange (forex) reserves fell to USD1.6bn at end-November, enough to finance only about one month’s imports. Colombo has in recent years relied on macroeconomic support from key partners Beijing and Delhi, but its relations with these players have come under some strain recently. Impacts Colombo will only turn to the IMF if its outreach to friendly countries fails to yield sufficiently favourable results. The central bank will strongly consider raising interest rates, having kept them steady at two policy meetings since hikes in August. Worsening economic hardship could prompt an increase in anti-government protests.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriana de Souza e Silva ◽  
Mai Nou Xiong-Gum

Mobile networked creativity is an emergent practice that arises from the ongoing relationships among people and people with technologies—or networked resources. In this paper, we propose a concept of creativity as emerging from serendipity and mobility. We focus on how unplanned or emergent uses of digital technologies reveal how creative practices emerge, particularly in the context of mobile phone use where people are also physically mobile and yet connected via the internet. This concept of creativity as a constant process of becoming is a “recursive organization” that can be seen in groups such as migrants, or people living in disenfranchised communities that survive in make-shift locations such refugee camps or slums. Contrary to the affluent and capitalistic-embedded traditional ideas of creativity, mobile networked creativity is a practice that is most often found in situations of economic hardship, power imbalances, and immobilities.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
R Mattes ◽  
K Dalal ◽  
H Rhoma ◽  
S Lambert ◽  
T De Wet ◽  
...  

AbstractAimsWe examined whether first-hand experience of ill-health and economic hardship during the COVID-19 pandemic might strengthen public support for vaccination, and for the reallocation of health sector funding towards health emergency preparedness in South Africa – a country in which high rates of vaccine hesitancy go hand in hand with widespread discontent regarding public service delivery.MethodsUsing data from 1,600 South African respondents who were surveyed during 2021 for the Eighth Round of Afrobarometer (AB-R8), discrete measures of household- and individual-level sociodemographic and economic factors were generated to permit confounder-adjusted analyses of probabilistic causal relationships between self-reported measures of: personal/household COVID-19 illness and job/income/business loss as a result of COVID-19; and the likelihood that respondents would accept a (government-approved) COVID-19 vaccine, or support the reallocation of health sector funding towards health emergency preparedness.FindingsThere was little evidence that personal/household experience of COVID-19 illness was associated with the likelihood that respondents would (or would not) accept a (government-approved) COVID-19 vaccine (OR: 0.96; 95%CI: 0.72,1.28); or that these respondents would (or would not) support the reallocation of health sector funding towards health emergency preparedness (OR: 0.95; 95%CI: 0.71,1.26), even after adjustment for individual- or household-level sociodemographic and economic covariates considered likely confounders. There was similarly little evidence that personal/household experience of job/income/business loss as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with support for the reallocation of health sector resources for emergency preparedness (OR: 1.02; 95%CI: 0.80,1.30); again, even after adjustment for potential confounders.However, respondents who reported that they or someone in their household had lost their job/income/or business as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic had only around half the odds of reporting that they would accept a (government-approved) COVID-19 vaccine (OR: 0.60; 95%CI: 0.47,0.77) – and this finding, like the others in these analyses, was largely unaffected by the inclusion/exclusion of covariates considered susceptible to change following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic (i.e. those covariates potentially operating as colliders rather than genuine confounders).ConclusionsThese findings suggest that – despite the postulated ‘experiential dividend’ of COVID-19 illness (i.e. its expected impact on vaccine hesitancy and support for the reallocation of health sector resources for health emergency preparedness) – no such ‘dividend’ was observed in this broadly representative sample of South African adults. Indeed, job/income/business loss (and associated economic hardship) also had little effect on support for the reallocation of health sector resources for health emergency preparedness; yet this was somewhat paradoxically associated with a much lower odds of vaccine acceptance – paradoxically, since vaccination has been widely viewed as a pragmatic (if somewhat neoliberal) intervention to protect economic activity. However, these findings might simply reflect inadequate confounder adjustment for preceding and entrenched attitudes towards vaccination amongst those South Africans who are also most vulnerable to job/income/business loss as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Protecting the livelihood and health of such individuals and households is likely to remain a substantial challenge and key priority for future emergencies in which economic activity is compromised.AimThe aim of the present study was to examine whether first-hand experience of ill-health and economic hardship during the COVID-19 pandemic might have strengthened public support for vaccination, and for the reallocation of health sector funding towards health emergency preparedness in South Africa – a country in which high rates of vaccine hesitancy go hand in hand with widespread discontent regarding public service delivery. To this end we drew on data generated by the eighth round of household surveys undertaken by Afrobarometer (AB-R8) which interviewed 1,600 respondents across South Africa during 2021 – more than a year after the country’s first confirmed case of COVID-19 on 5 March 2020.


2021 ◽  
pp. 026540752110565
Author(s):  
Ann-Zofie Duvander ◽  
Linda Kridahl

Economic conflicts are likely to affect couples’ relationship, and different strategies of handling money may be important for how common such conflicts are. This study investigates whether couples’ choice of pooling money is associated with the occurrence of economic conflicts and whether different degree of pooling matters differently in different situations in life. The study focuses on whether the respondents experience economic hardship, their age (or cohort), and duration of union. We use the GGS 2012/2013 for Sweden including cohabiting and married respondents aged 20–80. Results from regression models suggest that couples who pool all money have lowest propensity for economic conflicts. Furthermore, to have difficulties making ends meet is associated with economic conflicts, older couples (or of earlier cohorts) are less likely to experience economic conflicts and likewise relationships of long duration less often experience economic conflict. It seems that pooling money is associated with less economic conflicts especially among the couples with economic hardships, among older couples, and couples of longer duration. Thus, pooling of money has a moderating importance for some situations.


Significance The outcome comes as little surprise, given the repressive tactics used by the Ortega administration in the run-up to the vote, which included the disqualification or imprisonment of numerous opposition candidates. The United States and other international actors are now poised to put increased pressure on the re-elected government. Impacts The prospect of extended sanctions will act as a further disincentive to foreign investment. Ortega’s efforts to boost regional support through increased alignment with Honduras may lead to greater bilateral trade. More undocumented Nicaraguan migration looks inevitable, whether due to continuing political repression or worsening economic hardship.


2021 ◽  
pp. 179-198
Author(s):  
Lisa Fiksenbaum ◽  
Zdravko Marjanovic ◽  
Esther Greenglass ◽  
Francisco Garcia-Santos

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