Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik / Briefing Paper

We use new data on political connections from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys to examine the impact of connections on firms' participation in international trade through global value chains (GVCs) for six lower middle income MENA countries and territories (Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, the West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, and Lebanon). Our findings add to the literature on “hidden protection” and corruption in the region: trade- and investment policies and regulations are tailored to benefit or protect politically connected firms. Our findings suggest that politically connected firms are more likely to participate in GVCs by 9.8 percentage points and that the intensity of their participation in GVCs increases by 4.1 percentage points. Combining political connections and grand corruption increases firms' participation in GVCs by 13.6 percentage points.

Territorial Use Rights for Fisheries (TURFs) are a rights-based management strategy that grants area-based fishing rights to specific community groups. In Ecuador, following immense mangrove deforestation caused by industrial shrimp farming, TURFs have been implemented through Mangrove Sustainable Use and Custody Agreements (AUSCEMs, for its Spanish acronym), driven by grassroots demands to conserve remaining mangroves and recognize ancestral territorial rights. This article examines the power-laden dynamics of these agreements in the Gulf of Guayaquil, Ecuador through ethnographic research in two fishing communities. We analyze historical and ongoing conflicts and reveal how multi-scalar power—across visible, hidden, and invisible forms—shapes access to and control over mangrove resources, often reinforcing inequalities and epistemic injustices. Our findings highlight how funding inequities, limited tenure security, and rising threats from organized crime compromise community-led conservation. For this management approach to succeed, it is essential to close funding gaps for stewardship and innovation, address security and service disparities, recognize local ecological knowledge, and fully honor ancestral territorial rights to promote equitable, sustainable governance.

Amid rising restrictions on foreign funding, localization—directly funding local groups—is seen as a path to more effective, locally owned aid. This policy brief examines whether donors should shift support from large civil society organizations to grassroots community groups.

The Trump administration is pursuing an explicitly anti-multilateralist policy rooted in national sovereignty, geopolitical calculation, and transactional economics. Conspiracy theories played a significant role in justifying actions like the dismantling of USAID. Global norms, including the SDGs, are cast as threats to U.S. interests precisely because they promote forms of cooperative governance. The withdrawal from international organizations, disregard for established norms (even to the point of military threats), and blunt pressure on other nations—such as the baseless accusations of “genocide” against South Africa—signal a paradigm shift. It redefines the balance between values and interests, privileging short-term political dominance over long-term global cooperation.

Background: Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdown policies emerged as pivotal measures to contain viral transmission. Questions arose about whether their implementation challenged access to care, particularly in regions with fragile or less resilient health systems, such as sub-Saharan Africa. Robust evidence on the effect of lockdowns on healthcare access remains sparse, partly due to a lack of suitable data. We addressed this gap and assessed the effect of the COVID-19 lockdown policy on facility-based delivery during the first pandemic wave in Kenya. Methods: We triangulated findings from two independent quantitative analyses, exploiting the fact that lockdowns in Kenya were implemented only in selected counties. First, we used nationally representative repeated cross-sectional surveys from 2018 and 2020, applying a pre-post-test design with independent controls. Second, we analyzed monthly data from the Kenya Health Information System (Jan 2019–Nov 2020) using an interrupted time series (ITSA) with independent controls, with April 2020 set as the interruption point. Results: The controlled pre-post analysis found no significant effect of lockdowns on facility-based delivery in lockdown vs. non-lockdown counties. The ITSA showed an immediate increase of 4.97% (CI: 0.51%, 9.43%) in facility deliveries in lockdown counties, followed by a significant monthly decrease of 0.97% (CI: -1.60%, -0.34%) compared with non-lockdown counties. Conclusion: We found no overall effect of lockdowns on facility-based deliveries. Our results suggest that, when managed well, lockdowns do not necessarily disrupt access to maternal health services—demonstrating elements of resilience even under crisis conditions. These findings underscore the value of context-specific, adaptive strategies to ensure continuity of essential services during health emergencies. Future research should explore localized and socioeconomic factors shaping responses to public health interventions and further examine how resilience can be strengthened at all levels of the health system.

Capital is grabbing back land allocated through diverse national land reform and landrestitution programmes globally. This article critically analyses this trend, which has so far received insufficient attention from land grab scholars. Drawing from independent research in South Africa, Bolivia, Canada, and Zimbabwe, we define a future research agenda investigating the capital segments and grabbing mechanisms involved as well as the factors that encourage or retard capital in grabbing back redistributed and restituted lands. We point to the need for further research into the land grabbing-land reform/restitution nexus in different geographic contexts and its implications for future land and agrarian struggles.

This paper analyses the structural vulnerabilities of Latin American economies amid recent United States (US)-China tariff escalations and identifies strategic opportunities emerging from these shifts. Based on descriptive bilateral trade data from 2023 for the largest Latin American economies – Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico – the study assesses exposure to US tariffs at the industry level. It further highlights sectors with the potential to benefit from diverted trade flows in the context of trade polarisation between China and the US. The degree of exposure varies across countries, depending on export structure and trade partners. While the tariff conflict may enable some countries to expand exports to China or the US, most Latin American economies – except Mexico – export their largest share of their manufactured goods within the region. Strengthening regional trade integration can therefore enhance resilience to external shocks and support technological upgrading.

Melike Döver and Martin Middelanis are researchers at Freie Universität Berlin in Germany.

United States (US) trade policy has undergone a series of significant changes introducing far-reaching uncertainty for trading partners in both the short and long term. Among the most vulnerable to these changes are low- and middle-income countries. Anticipating the potential impact of proposed or enacted US trade measures ex-ante is difficult. Therefore, this discussion paper examines the structural vulnerabilities of a selection of African countries – Lesotho, Madagascar, Côte d’Ivoire, South Africa, and Tunisia – to recent shifts. Using descriptive trade data, the paper maps direct and indirect channels of exposure and highlights the structural constraints that amplify vulnerability. While Africa is not among the most directly exposed regions, several countries face significant risks due to concentrated export structures, reliance on a few trade partners, and limited capacity to redirect trade in the short term. This highlights the strategic importance for African countries to strengthen regional integration, industrial upgrading, and reduce external dependencies.

Sascha Berndt and Andreas Edele are trade policy experts at Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH.