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The study finds that WACC in Africa's power sector remains high compared to global benchmarks, driven primarily by a cost of equity that is on average double the cost of debt. While WACC is projected to decrease from 18% to 13% by 2070, significant regional disparities persist, with Eastern Africa facing the highest costs and Northern Africa the lowest. The authors argue that using uniform cost of capital assumptions leads to underestimation bias in energy costs and misguides policy, particularly for capital-intensive clean energy projects.

The report details significant economic distress in the Navajo Nation, characterized by low median household incomes, high unemployment, and a workforce that must largely seek employment outside the community. While average annual wages have increased, they remain below living wage standards for most industry clusters. The region faces demographic challenges, including a declining youth population and limited housing availability due to complex land-use and leasing requirements.

The research paper assesses three Basic Income Grant (BIG) scenarios for South Africa: Low, Medium, and High Ambition. Using the Dynamically Integrated Macro-Micro Simulation Model (DIMMSIM), the author argues that a BIG can be funded through a combination of a wealth tax, a Social Security Tax (SST), and increased VAT revenue without requiring changes to existing income tax or VAT rates. The findings suggest that such a programme would significantly reduce poverty and inequality while simultaneously boosting GDP growth and employment, contradicting predictions from neoclassical CGE and DSGE models that suggest such transfers lead to economic contraction.

The Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Index ranks 153 countries based on 11 indicators across three dimensions: inclusion (education, employment, parliamentary representation, cellphone use, and financial inclusion), justice (legal discrimination, son bias, and discriminatory norms), and security (intimate partner violence, community safety, and organized violence). Iceland ranks first (.886), while Afghanistan and Syria rank last (.385). The report finds that while some countries perform well across all dimensions, many exhibit unbalanced achievements; for example, Latin America performs well on justice but poorly on inclusion. The index also highlights a disconnect between national income and women's well-being, noting that countries like Saudi Arabia rank significantly lower on the index than their per capita income would suggest. Additionally, the report analyzes the specific impact of conflict on security, noting that women in conflict-affected states face a 35 percent higher risk of intimate partner violence.

The document details the creation of global country-level water stress projections by aggregating sub-catchment data using a spatially weighted methodology. It utilizes IPCC AR5 data to model three scenarios—optimistic, business-as-usual, and pessimistic—across three time horizons (2020, 2030, 2040). The rankings are designed to help investors, companies, and governments benchmark national water risks and prioritize adaptation. A 2040 business-as-usual ranking identifies several Middle Eastern countries, including Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar, as having the highest water stress scores of 5.00.

The document details the construction of the Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas, which uses a composite index approach to map global water risks. It describes the development of six modeled indicators (baseline water stress, inter-annual variability, seasonal variability, upstream storage, return flow ratio, and upstream protected land) and the adaptation of six externally sourced indicators (flood occurrence, drought severity, groundwater stress, media coverage, access to water, and threatened amphibians). The methodology involves using an ensemble of regression models to project water withdrawals to 2010, spatial disaggregation to the catchment scale, and a catchment-to-catchment flow accumulation approach for water supply. The final water risk scores are generated through a linear weighted aggregation process, allowing users to customize weights based on their specific sector or risk sensitivity.

The research paper examines whether the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) has led to governance improvements in member states using the 2014 Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG) as a benchmark. The author finds mixed results: while 10 of 17 reviewed countries showed some progress—most notably Rwanda—others like Mali and Benin experienced regression. The paper concludes that there is no obvious direct positive correlation between APRM reviews and improved IIAG scores, largely because member states have failed to systematically implement the required National Programmes of Action (NPoA). To improve, the author recommends strengthening peer pressure, increasing secretariat support for national planning, and enhancing civil society engagement to ensure domestic accountability.

The authors adapt McKinsey's global abatement cost data for use in the CRED model by aggregating 21 regions into nine and 11 sectors into two (land use and industry). To resolve the theoretical conflict of 'negative-cost' abatements—where energy savings outweigh investment—the authors assign these measures a near-zero but positive cost. The resulting estimates suggest that emission reductions may be cheaper than those projected by top-down integrated assessment models like RICE or EMF-22, while remaining broadly comparable to the MIT EPPA model's positive-cost estimates.

The report evaluates the human health impacts of reducing sulphur in marine fuels, comparing a 'no action' scenario with two control options: a 0.1% sulphur limit within 200 nautical miles of coastlines and a global 0.5% sulphur limit. It estimates that these controls could reduce global premature mortality from international shipping by 50-60% by 2012, saving between 41,500 and 50,000 lives annually. Using US EPA cost methodology, the Friends of the Earth International (FOEI) values these societal benefits at approximately $225 to $275 billion per year.

This research paper investigates the impact of democracy measurement on the 'democratic peace' proposition, which posits that democracies rarely go to war with one another. The author compares the widely used Polity dataset with Vanhanen's Polyarchy dataset, which uses a simpler index based on electoral competition and participation. Through bivariate and multivariate analyses of conflict data from 1816 to 2002, the study finds that the choice of indicator does matter; specifically, electoral competition appears to be a stronger predictor of peace than the aggregated democracy scores. The author concludes that while different measures often correlate, they are not interchangeable and can lead to different inferences about the causes of international peace.

The report develops a pilot Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW) for Sweden (1950-1992), finding that while per capita ISEW grew by over 90%, it lagged behind the more than 100% growth of per capita GNP. The index began to diverge from GNP around 1980, eventually declining by 1992. This divergence was less severe than in the US or UK, which the authors attribute to Sweden's progressive income distribution policies and its reliance on hydropower, which reduced the negative impacts of resource depletion and long-term environmental damage in the index calculations.

The research argues that ethnic terrorism declines when governments implement accommodation strategies, such as granting political power or regional autonomy to marginalized groups. Using a dataset linking the Global Terrorism Database to the Ethnic Power Relations project, the authors find that moves away from active discrimination significantly reduce the expected number of terrorist attacks. While transitions to democracy generally reduce ethnic terrorism, the effect is heterogeneous, with some Asian countries showing increased activity. The study also notes that while overall terrorism declines after accommodation, attacks by splinter groups may increase as hardliners reject settlements.

The authors argue that non-violent direct action is more effective at undermining autocracies and significantly more likely to lead to democratic transitions than violent conflict. Using a multinomial logit model for the period 1900-2004, the study finds that non-violent campaigns substantially increase the probability of democratization, particularly when the state has a high proportion of democratic neighbors. Conversely, violent direct action is less effective at destabilizing regimes overall and makes transitions to new autocracies relatively more likely. The research suggests that non-violence promotes power dispersion and elite defection, whereas violence tends to centralize power and justify further repression.