Two spectres plagued this year’s International AIDS Conference, which took place in Brazil this week.

1. The major decline in global funding to combat HIV/AIDS

2. The uneven access to new, transformative drugs

International HIV financing dropped by 18%---more than $1.5 billion—between 2024 and 2025. That’s the lowest level in nearly two decades.

At the same time, multiple drugs that are highly effective at preventing the transmission of HIV have already—or are expected to soon—come onto the market. One of those is lenacapavir, a twice-yearly injectable drug that is nearly 100% effective at preventing HIV transmission. While licensing deals have brought down the high cost of lenacapavir for many low- and middle-income countries, some countries have been excluded from low-cost deals. Without a deal, they (and their citizens) will pay full price—which for many countries is several times their per capita GDP, as we highlight below.

So at the very moment in which game-changing drugs offer the possibility to win the decades-long fight against HIV/AIDS, money—the lack of it and the lust for it—could slow progress.

Millions of people’s lives hang in the balance.

— Joe Kraus, Senior Policy Director, ONE Data

Note: We will be taking a break in August to both recharge and focus on some exciting work we’ll be sharing soon.

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3 things to know

1. For the first time, the fight against HIV/AIDS appears winnable. AIDS-related illnesses have claimed more than 44 million lives since the start of the epidemic. At its peak in 2004, the disease killed 2.1 million lives. Since then, pharmaceutical advancements have transformed HIV infection from a death sentence to a manageable disease where people can live long, fulfilling lives (if they have access to drug therapies—which we’ll get to shortly).

New drugs that prevent the transmission of HIV stand to be game changers. Cabotegravir, an antiretroviral drug used for the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS, reached the market in 2021. Unlike the other preventative drugs available at the time, which were oral pills, Cabotegravir was novel in that it’s an injection taken every two months. In clinical trials, it achieved a 66%-89% lower HIV incidence compared with people taking oral pills.

Lenacapavir’s effectiveness may be even more impressive. In clinical trials, it was 96%-100% effective at preventing HIV transmission compared to people not taking any preventative drugs. That’s a level of protection comparable to a vaccine. Fifty—or even 15—years ago, that seemed like an impossible dream. Today, it is reality.

Last Friday, Merck announced that it had granted seven licenses to generic manufacturers to produce alimatravir (formerly known as MK-8527), a once-monthly oral pill that helps prevent HIV transmission. That includes four generic manufacturers in India and three in Africa. Those deals will enable the supply of generic alimatravir in 129 low- and middle-income countries.

Alimatravir will provide another important tool in the toolbox to fight HIV/AIDS to meet people’s needs. As an oral pill, it won’t require people to go into a facility to receive injections, yet its monthly regimen may increase adherence over daily pills. Alimatravir does not yet have an announced commercial price, but researchers estimate that generic production at scale could support a price of roughly $3 per person per year.

2. Getting the drugs to those who need them is critical. Even miracle drugs don’t work if not available to those that need them. Here, history is our guide: Many low- and middle-income countries, particularly in parts of Africa most impacted by HIV/AIDS, were priced out of accessing drugs in the 1990s and early 2000s. That helped enable the disease to surge, costing many people their lives.

Despite the incredible progress made over the past three decades, 570,000 people still died from HIV/AIDS in 2025. There are several contributing factors—persistent stigma, weak healthcare systems, and marginalisation—but inability to access life-saving treatments remains an issue.

Fortunately, access to new drugs has improved markedly in recent years. Pharmaceutical companies used to wait to see how phase 3 trials played out before inking manufacturing deals. That is changing. Companies have started getting licensing and manufacturing deals in place while clinical trials are ongoing. That’s enabled them to move much more quickly once trials are concluded and regulatory approvals are secured, cutting the time to generic market entry by as much as three years.

Source: AVAC

As a result, 120 low- and middle-income countries are expected to gain access to lower-cost, generic versions of lenacapavir through Gilead’s voluntary licensing agreements with six generic manufacturers. Until generic production scales up, Gilead has committed to supply the medicine at no profit. Broad generic availability is expected in 2027, bringing the cost down from the US list price of $28,218 to around $40 per year and making this groundbreaking prevention option accessible to more people. The Global Fund and PEPFAR are jointly helping provide access to 3 million people in countries with high HIV burdens. Thus far, demand has outstripped supply for lenacapavir, which will hopefully be addressed as manufacturing scales up and countries get better at managing the rollout.

The rapid progress toward affordable access to long-acting preventative HIV drugs reflects years of collaboration across the HIV community. That includes pharmaceutical innovators, advocates, governments, and philanthropic partners working to shape the market, accelerate voluntary licensing, and ensure that new tools reach the people who need them. But in that regard, there’s still room for improvement….

3. More than two dozen middle-income countries have been excluded from low cost deals. Twenty-five middle-income countries—including three lower-middle income countries—have been excluded from generic licensing deals for lenacapavir. Those countries account for nearly one in four new HIV infections.

Latin America, in particular, has been left out in the cold: 11 countries in Latin America are without low-cost lenacapavir deals. That includes Brazil, the host of this year’s International AIDS Conference, as well as Argentina, Mexico, and Peru. Notably, all four countries participated in clinical trials that helped bring lenacapavir to market. [Some of those same middle-income countries—again centred in Latin America—are also excluded from Merck’s generic licensing deals for alimatravir.]

Explore the interactive map

Unless those countries cut a deal with Gilead for lower cost access to the drugs (talks are ongoing), they could end up paying full price. Which, as highlighted in the map above, is more than those countries’ per capita GDPs. That would leave the best defense against HIV/AIDS out of the reach of millions of people, heightening the risk of increased HIV infections and avoidable AIDS deaths.

FROM THE ONE TEAM:

• Ambassador Mark Green on the tough choices facing HIV-infected people in lower-income countries.

• David McNair and Damilola Ogunbiyi argue in Financial Afrik that the strategic interests of Africa and Europe are converging.

IN THE QUEUE:

• South African workers turn to gambling to pay debt.

• Smile, you’re starving.

• The pathway to prosperity is getting harder for developing countries.

• A moving portrayal of life in a refugee camp impacted by Ebola.

ONE Data provides cutting edge data, tools, and analysis so that we can fight together for a more just world. See for yourself.

Food insecurity is going down, but the cost of eating healthy is going up. That’s the too-long-didn’t-read summary of the UN’s annual food security report, published this week. But that masks a lot of important nuances about who has access to healthy food and where they live.

So this week, we dig into the numbers.

— Joe Kraus, Senior Policy Director, ONE Data

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3 things to know

1. Food security is improving globally. 14 million fewer people faced hunger last year than in 2024 (and 43 million fewer than in 2022). That’s the good news. The bad news is that progress is uneven. Asia and Latin America have seen steady improvements. Yet in Africa, 309 million people—one in every five!—experienced hunger in 2025.

Explore the interactive chart

The same pattern holds true for broader measures of food access. Moderate or severe levels of food insecurity—defined as being forced to compromise quality or quantity of food—affected 25.8% of the global population last year. That’s down from 28.7% in 2020, representing 135 million fewer people. Yet the regional differences are stark, and once again Africa lags the rest of the world. Well over half (56.6%) of Africa’s population faced moderate or severe insecurity in 2025.

Explore the interactive chart

2. Eating healthy has become more expensive. The average global cost of a healthy diet has increased by 24% since 2021 and by 45% since 2017. Rising wages seem to have offset this overall, since 280 million fewer people were unable to afford a healthy diet in 2025 compared to 2021.

But that progress still leaves nearly 2.7 billion people struggling to eat a healthy diet, and once again masks regional disparities. Two-thirds of Africa’s population couldn’t afford to eat healthy last year, more than double the levels in Asia and Latin America. And importantly, those numbers don’t include the impacts of the Iran war on food prices and availability. The UN predicts that geopolitical tensions—including the Iran war—could leave an additional 9-18 million people facing hunger.

Explore the interactive chart

3. Food insecurity is coming to a store near you. Obviously, the global decline in food insecurity is very good news. But it’s worth taking a beat to highlight something not considered in the UN’s numbers: the impacts of climate change. The downward trend in food insecurity may very well stall or even reverse as climate change’s impacts become more ubiquitous.

Take droughts, for instance. Our analyses have found that the number of people impacted by droughts will increase 400% by 2050, and that droughts in Africa have tripled in the past 50 years. Crop-damaging heat will increasingly jeopardise food crops barring major policy and agricultural shifts. Recent heatwaves across Europe destroyed an estimated 9 million tonnes of crops valued at €2 billion. That, and other climate-related events, will result in less food and higher prices, a double whammy that will impact lives regardless of geography.

FROM THE ONE TEAM:

• David McNair on how advocates can build movements that win, and on how small countries can have a big impact by promoting “dignified development.”

• Adrian Lovett penned a letter to new UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham, urging him to bolster Britain’s international leadership.

• ICYMI: A seismic shift in where people live and work.

IN THE QUEUE:

• Africa’s “idle trillions” are already hard at work.

• The banality of professional excellence.

ONE Data provides cutting edge data, tools, and analysis so that we can fight together for a more just world. See for yourself.

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Dear Reader,

We are foregoing our usual newsletter this week to focus on several pieces of cool content we’ll share with you in the coming weeks and months. We’ll be back next week, but in the meantime, below are a few articles and videos we think are worth your time.

— Joe Kraus, Senior Policy Director, ONE Data

FROM THE ONE TEAM:

• Ambassador Mark Green on the importance of trade across Africa.

• The African Scan highlights a recent spate of African countries taking control over capital, and their destinies.

• Lesijolu Eite Eric-Nwabuzor on why the way we talk about Africa shapes the way the world invests in Africa.

• David McNair provides an update on the ebola crisis.

IN THE QUEUE:

• Watch a longtime cashew farmer in Benin try cashews for the first time.

• Why is it so difficult (and crazy expensive) to fly within Africa?

• What endures: Navigating AI and the end of aid as we knew it.

ONE Data provides cutting edge data, tools, and analysis so that we can fight together for a more just world. See for yourself.

In March, on the night the Democratic Republic of Congo qualified for its first World Cup in 52 years, thousands of fans ran through rain-soaked streets in Kinshasa. Last November, when Haiti qualified for the first time since 1974, fireworks erupted across a country where gangs control 90% of the capital. Even the gangs joined the celebrations.

We tend to treat the World Cup as a month of entertainment, but for many of the 48 nations at this year’s tournament, it’s also something else: a rare force for national unity, a source of hope, and a mirror of the global economy.

— Yahya Rana, visiting researcher from the Harvard Kennedy School

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3 surprising things about the World Cup

1. When national teams win, nations pull together. Of the 48 teams at this year’s World Cup, 10 come from countries facing internal conflict or insecurity, home to around 780 million people. For them, the tournament is more than entertainment. Economists studying African national teams found that in the days after an important victory, citizens were 37% less likely to identify primarily with their ethnic group and 30% more likely to trust people of other ethnicities. By comparing teams that qualified for major tournaments with those that didn’t, the researchers found that qualifying countries experienced roughly 9% less conflict in the months that followed.

Explore the interactive chart

Why it matters: Former Senegal international footballer Ferdinand Coly put it best: “When Senegal plays, there is no political affiliation. It’s simply Senegal.” For a few weeks, hundreds of millions of people in divided countries get to see their nation whole. It may be the cheapest unity a country ever gets. That was visible during this year’s tournament. In Bunia, a city in DR Congo’s conflict-scarred east, viewing centres were packed for every national team match. One fan told Al Jazeera the team made Congolese proud “as if nothing were wrong.” In Baghdad, where the Iran war’s spillover has killed at least 100 Iraqis, fans flooded the streets at dawn; “The Iraqi people are united across all sects,” one told AFP. In Port-au-Prince, residents cleaned streets and built communal viewing areas to watch matches together during blackouts.

2. Football is one of Africa’s biggest exports. African players make up over 14% of footballers across Europe’s top five leagues, drawn especially from West Africa. Like coffee, cocoa, and critical minerals, the raw material is produced at home and the value is added abroad. It is Europe’s leagues, competition, and exposure that turn a talented teenager into a multi-million-dollar asset. Clubs spent a record-adjacent $8.59 billion on international transfer fees in 2024. That money is exchanged almost entirely between clubs in wealthy countries. Some players benefit enormously, of course, but relatively little of that money makes it back home (with some exceptions, as we note below).

Explore the interactive chart

Why it matters: This is the same value-capture story we’ve told about coffee and chocolate (Africa grows it but only keeps a sliver of the retail value) and critical minerals (raw ore is exported, but processed value is retained elsewhere). The pattern generalises: whoever owns the value-adding stage captures the wealth. For football, that means the long-term solution isn’t charity, it’s building the “refinery” at home by developing competitive leagues, professional academies, and infrastructure that lets African football keep more of the value African players create.

3. Money that flows back home comes mostly from generosity, not via football itself. FIFA rules earmark a small percentage of every transfer fee for the clubs that developed a player. FIFA launched a dedicated Clearing House in late 2022 to enforce this, but only about $157 million was distributed to training clubs worldwide against $8.6 billion spent on player transfers in 2024. What reaches Africa instead mostly arrives informally. For example, Senegal’s Sadio Mané has poured over £700,000 into his home village of Bambali to create a hospital serving 34 villages, a school, and to provide for monthly family stipends.

The hospital that Sadio Mané funded in his hometown of Bambali, Senegal

Source: Citi Sports

Why it matters: Generosity is not a system. Mané funded the hospital’s construction, but had to ask the state to provide the medical personnel. Only public institutions can run a clinic sustainably. That’s especially true at scale. Informal flows like charity and philanthropy directed home can be transformative for the communities that receive them. But their voluntary and unpredictable nature makes them poor substitutes for structural mechanisms and public investment, the very things that would get a boost if the countries that produce football talent found ways to capture more of its value.

FROM THE ONE TEAM:

• More than a match: Exploring North America – Africa connections through football, ONE’s World Cup collaboration with the George W. Bush Institute.

• ONE’s CEO Ambassador Mark Green on why Africa is losing its health care talent.

• William Menson on whether donors or governments really shape health policy in Africa.

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IN THE QUEUE:

• The system we won’t name.

• Why the poorest countries send the fewest migrants.

• The mechanics of building strong states in 21st century Africa.

…

ONE Data provides cutting edge data, tools, and analysis so that we can fight together for a more just world. See for yourself.

— Joe Kraus, Senior Policy Director, ONE Data

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Major population changes lie ahead

Between now and the end of the century, the world’s population is expected to grow from 8.3 billion to 10.2 billion. That growth won’t occur evenly. Some regions, like Asia, Europe, and Latin America, will see their populations contract. Other regions will grow. That’s especially true for Africa, which is projected to see the biggest global population surge (+141%) by 2100, far outpacing other regions. As a result, Africa’s share of the global population will expand from 19% to nearly 38%.

Explore an interactive version of the chart

Shifts in population will reshape the global workforce. Today, Asia accounts for over 60% of the world’s working age population (defined as people ages 15-64). But Africa is about to experience a massive surge in new workers.

Explore an interactive version of the chart

As a result, Africa’s share of the world’s workers will surge from 17% in 2026 to over 25% by 2050 and 40% by 2100. Combined, Africa and Asia will be home to over four in every five workers globally by century’s end.

Explore an interactive version of the chart

That will have important implications for economies, trade routes, and migration. And those changes will be noticeable in the coming decades. By 2050, significant shifts in where workers live will be clearly visible, with the numbers of workers declining in Europe, China, and Japan, and surging across Africa and southern Asia.

Explore an interactive version of the chart

Population changes will impact global consumption patterns. Advanced economies across Asia, Europe, and North America will see their share of global consumption fall to 30% by 2050 from around 60% at the start of the 21st century. That will invariably lead global firms to shift their focus, product design, and footprint to younger, faster-growing markets. India’s share of global consumption will rise to 16% by 2050, up from 9% in 2023 (adjusted for price differences). Africa’s demographic expansion could unlock more than $3 trillion in consumer spending by 2050.

Demographic shifts will force countries with declining populations to find ways to fill vacant jobs and help pay for social safety nets stretched by aging populations. One option, championed by economist Lant Pritchett, is “rotational labor mobility.” Such a system would enable the orderly exchange of temporary workers from areas with excess workers to places with labor gaps. It could add $6 trillion in additional wages to the global economy by 2050.

A change is coming. Countries would be wise to prepare for it.

FROM THE ONE TEAM:

• David McNair on an important scientific breakthrough to find an HIV vaccine.

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IN THE QUEUE:

• Sovereignty has a price tag and Africa is setting it.

• Repeat yourself: How repetition strengthens your data communication.

• Time is king.

…

ONE Data provides cutting edge data, tools, and analysis so that we can fight together for a more just world. See for yourself.

This week, The Insider’s Micaela Iveson spoke with ISS Senior Research Consultant Dr. Marvellous Ngundu about why Africa has the raw materials to insulate itself from this kind of crisis — and why, after decades of plans left on shelves, it still hasn’t.

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Q: The Hormuz disruptions have hit fertiliser markets hard. But you argue Africa holds many of the inputs it needs. What’s the real bottleneck?

A: The most critical problem is processing. Africa holds significant raw materials needed to produce fertilizer, but instead of processing them on the continent, we export them raw and buy them back as finished products. Morocco is rich in phosphate. Egypt, Algeria, and Nigeria have vast reserves and some capacity to produce phosphate fertilizer. But because processing facilities are lacking, we remain exposed to exactly the kind of supply shocks we’re experiencing now. If that processing happened within Africa, the current price shock need not have affected us at all.

Q: The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement aims to create a single market across the continent – ideally facilitating the type of intra-African trade you’re talking about. Is it currently equipped to do so?

A: It’s legally ready — 54 countries have approved it — but not operationally ready. Fewer than 30 have actually started trading under it. More importantly, the initiative is meant to promote regional value chains, not just free trade. The idea is that countries without processing capacity can send raw materials to those that do, rather than exporting extra-Africa. Morocco’s phosphate could be processed in another African country, for instance, and the whole supply chain would stay on the continent.

Q: What about the financial side — are monetary instruments part of the resilience toolkit?

A: Absolutely, and this is underappreciated. African financial markets are shallow, which makes it very difficult to raise capital domestically. That dependency on the global north for investment is itself a transmission mechanism for shocks. We need pan-African financial markets that allow capital to move efficiently across the continent. Right now, even well-capitalized private investors — Dangote is a good example — have faced enormous bureaucratic obstacles trying to establish facilities in other African countries. It’s not a money problem; it’s a process problem.

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“Every African country has had a value addition policy sitting on a shelf for twenty years. The song has been sung for a long time.”

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Q: In 2022, war in Ukraine created a separate, significant shock to fertiliser prices. Between then and now, what actually changed on the policy front?

A: Not much, in terms of implementation. Policies were drafted — but this has been the pattern for decades. Every African country has had a value addition and beneficiation policy sitting on a shelf for twenty years. The song has been sung for a long time. The gap is in implementation, and the main reason implementation stalls is capital. Investors, particularly from the global north, are deterred by political instability and institutional uncertainty. So it loops back: African countries need to address domestic governance if they want to attract the investment their own policies require.

Q: What signals should readers watch to know whether African food systems are getting more resilient?

A: Watch the Dangote refinery‘s reach — the Lagos-based oil refinery, one of the largest in the world when it opened in 2024, has already supplied a number of African countries during this disruption. Watch which new countries operationalise the AfCFTA, and watch collective infrastructure initiatives, like the joint DRC-Zambia plant to process battery minerals. The path forward requires coordinated action across trade, finance, agriculture, and energy — and whether African governments are willing to approach that collectively, rather than individually, will be the real test.

This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity. Read Dr. Ngundu’s recent piece on the Hormuz chokepoint and African food supply here.

FROM THE ONE TEAM:

• Will aid continue to fall next year? The OECD’s new aid projections are out and the answer is, probably. Read ONE’s statement.

• David McNair joined the Board of Directors for Trócaire, an Irish development organisation.

…

IN THE QUEUE:

• Ensuring Africa’s fuel, fertiliser and food sovereignty in dire times.

• Global disruption has primed developing economies to leapfrog technologies.

• Recovery of Ebola patients offers rare moments of joy at epicentre of outbreak.

…

ONE Data provides cutting edge data, tools, and analysis so that we can fight together for a more just world. See for yourself.

He has several reasons to be optimistic. And as an investor, he’s putting his money where his mouth is. Listen to our conversation to learn why James says investors would be wise to bet big on African energy.

— Joe Kraus, Senior Policy Director, ONE Data

FROM THE ONE TEAM:

• ONE welcomed the G7’s recognition of the Ebola crisis, but noted that concrete action is missing.

• David McNair on China’s quiet gamble on multilateralism.

…

IN THE QUEUE:

• Why hope is what we need.

• An interview with the author of The Yahoo Boys: Real Life with the Love Scammers of Lagos.

• New projects tackle DRC’s vast infrastructure gap.

…

ONE Data provides cutting edge data, tools, and analysis so that we can fight together for a more just world. See for yourself.

The pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the Iran War. All of these are crises that Africa didn’t create, but got hit hard by nonetheless. Countries already struggling with high levels of poverty and debt have had their problems compounded and their belts tightened.

Then along came sudden, sizable cuts to aid, which had provided a (sometimes literal) lifeline.

The cuts have jeopardised millions of lives and billions of livelihoods.

New analysis by The ONE Campaign quantifies the size of G7 countries’ aid cuts to Africa and what they could mean for a continent already struggling on multiple fronts.

— Joe Kraus, Senior Director, ONE Data

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3 things to know

1. G7 per capita aid to Africa fell by nearly one-quarter between 2021 to 2024. It dropped from $37.8 per person in 2021 to $28.6 per person in 2024 (in constant 2024 dollars). That means that G7 aid to Africa was $9.15 lower per African person in 2024 than it was just three years earlier. That figure takes into account Africa’s 2.5% yearly population growth over that period.

Why it matters: G7 leaders are asking African countries to manage more frequent global shocks, protect their populations from imported inflation, invest in resilience, and stay on track toward long-term development goals, with less support. Aid is not the only answer to Africa’s financing challenges. But for many low-income and crisis-affected countries, concessional finance remains one of the few sources of funding that can support basic services, humanitarian needs, and long-term investment without adding to debt stress. That makes the decline in G7 aid per person especially worrying.

2. Every G7 donor has cut per capita aid to Africa since 2021. The decline is not driven by one donor alone. Across the G7, most major donors provided less aid to Africa in 2024 than they did in 2021. Only Japan provided more aid over that period. But factoring in population growth, even Japan’s per capita aid to Africa fell.

But wait, there’s more (or rather, less): Not only is aid to Africa in decline, but the share of total aid spent in African countries is at its lowest levels in two decades. That means Africa is receiving a smaller share of the pie, as aid gets spent in other places, particularly with the rise of refugee costs in donor countries.

3. Aid to Africa looks likely to continue to fall. Preliminary data from the OECD points to a further drop in aid. Bilateral aid to Africa fell by nearly 24% in 2025, the second consecutive year of decline and the steepest on record. France, Germany, Japan, the UK, and the US accounted for over 95% of the decline. The OECD projects a further 5.8% decline in aid in 2026, a projection that doesn’t account for the impacts of the conflict in the Middle East.

Why it matters: Donors are increasingly trying to do more with less, stretching aid budgets across refugee costs, support to Ukraine, climate finance, private sector instruments, and geopolitical priorities. Those pressures are real. But when the aid pot does not grow, trade-offs become unavoidable. Too often, Africa loses.

FROM THE ONE TEAM:

• Ambassador Mark Green, President and CEO of ONE, on the need for countries to mobilise domestic resources to achieve self-reliance.

• Ndidi Okonkwo Nwuneli and David McNair on how the Strait of Hormuz shock is a wakeup call for African countries to reduce structural dependence.

• Rodney Kazibwe on the disparity between China’s and the US’s trade with Africa.

…

COOL TOOLS:

• Jorge Rivera built an open-source Python package that quickly turns messy country, city, and organisation names into clean, standard codes and IDs.

…

IN THE QUEUE:

• Why Africa keeps getting the wrong kind of crisis.

• “Cooling poverty” affects billions as heat risks rise.

• The arithmetic of destruction: How conflict compounds human capital loss.

…

ONE Data provides cutting edge data, tools, and analysis so that we can fight together for a more just world. See for yourself.

There’s a longstanding debate in the scholarly literature on whether international aid reduces or increases conflict, with studies landing on both sides. As any social scientist will be quick to tell you, studying humans and their actions is messy, inherently difficult, and annoyingly resistant to black-and-white answers.

But to oversimplify, the studies fall into one of two camps:

1. Aid reduces conflict: Aid raises the opportunity costs of fighting, improves people’s lives, reduces people’s grievances, and strengthens governance.

2. Aid increases conflict: Aid incentivises armed groups to loot or tax resources, sabotage projects that threaten their control, compete over aid, or target communities seen as cooperating with the state.

In reality, both camps are right, some of the time. A lot depends on circumstances. Aid supplied in fragile contexts—especially ones in which conflict already exists—tends to be at greater risk of contributing to conflict. But how aid is delivered—and not aid itself—is the key variable. Aid that is poorly targeted or badly managed can worsen violence, while well-designed aid programs can reduce it.

But what happens when aid suddenly stops? A new study tries to answer that question, looking at the impact of the US’s devastating aid cuts in 2025.

The findings are sobering and important, as we detail below.

— Joe Kraus, recovering social scientist and Senior Director at ONE Data

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2 key things to know

1. Regions with higher exposure to US aid cuts experienced higher conflict rates. The study, published in Science, found that the withdrawal of USAID in early 2025 resulted in a 6.5% greater probability of conflict, a 10% greater probability of protests and riots, and a 9.3% increase in the number of battle-related fatalities in regions at the 75th percentile of exposure to US aid. Those effects appeared immediately and persisted for months. The study’s findings validate a previous study that concluded that aid shocks (defined as an aid reduction of at least 24%) more than doubled the risk of violent conflict, from 2.1% to 5%.

The study’s authors theorise that the effects of the US aid cuts occurred because the economic opportunity costs of violence dropped more rapidly than the aid over which groups were competing (in part because aid included capital and infrastructure that didn’t immediately go away). The impacts on individuals, including beneficiaries and staff, was sudden, unexpected, and in many cases life altering. And as the study reveals, the aid cuts increased the likelihood of unrest and violence. Interestingly if unsurprisingly, the study found that the impacts of the aid cuts were mitigated in countries with stronger, more inclusive political institutions.

Why it matters: Aid is up to 40 times more volatile than government revenue. Aid revenues are the most significant source of external fluctuations after commodity prices. They account for 25% of all external shocks, ahead of natural disasters, humanitarian crises, changes in GDP, and fluctuations in international interest rates. And while the study’s authors caution that their findings cannot necessarily be applied to the more gradual (and less severe, in terms of absolute amounts) aid cuts by the likes of France, Germany, the UK and other donors countries, they present a cautionary tale about a previously underappreciated aspect of aid cuts.

2. It’s far cheaper to prevent conflict than resolve it. ONE Data’s analysis found that every $1 spent on activities that spur economic growth and political stability can avert spending of up to $103 on a future conflict. That means that preventing conflict is 100 times cheaper than responding to it.

Yet the top 10 OECD defense spenders allocate $7 to defense for every $1 spent on development and diplomacy, combined. Overall, more than 85% of their security-relevant spending is devoted to defense. That leaves less than 15% for the tools that help reduce fragility, manage shocks, and sustain political stability. Those 10 countries spent a combined $1.45 trillion on their militaries in 2024, up nearly 30% over the previous decade.

Why it matters: The US and other donor countries have labelled their aid cuts as cost-saving measures. The reality is that those cuts are actually costing them money in the long run due to higher security costs, weakened soft power, and lost jobs. International aid is deeply intertwined with donor countries’ agricultural markets, and helps provide buffers against biological and terror threats. TL;DR: Aid done effectively isn’t just about doing good. It’s a smart investment that yields economic and security returns both abroad and at home.

FROM THE ONE TEAM:

• ONE Data provided support for a new modelling study submitted to the Lancet Medical Journal by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health that estimates that recent and projected aid cuts by 11 European donors could be associated with over 12 million avoidable deaths by 2030.

• ONE Data partnered with the Future of Development Cooperation Coalition to produce The Development Balance Sheet.

• ONE Data presented on the effective use of open data alongside Google at the Global Data Festival in Nairobi this week.

IN THE QUEUE:

• As fertiliser shortage bites, Africa must look to its own soil.

• Africa must define Africa’s response to Ebola.

• Development finance faces a trillion-dollar traffic jam.

ONE Data provides cutting edge data, tools, and analysis so that we can fight together for a more just world. See for yourself.

That’s what James Mwangi, a Kenyan climate investor, thinks Africa can do to boost its farm yields while decreasing its exposure to high fertiliser costs. With shocks from geopolitical events like the Iran war and climate change impacting farmers, James says now is the time for Africa to invest in a better future.

Watch the full interview with James above to learn why he’s so optimistic.

Ghana’s recent debt history follows a striking arc. The country went from heavily indebted in the early 2000s to a darling of the international bond market in the 2010s, only to default on its debt in 2022. Its prospects look better today, but its situation remains tenuous, especially given recent geopolitical volatility and global economic uncertainty.

In terms of debt, Ghana may be the canary in the coal mine. Thirty-two countries are in or at high risk of debt distress. Low- and middle-income countries hold $3.6 trillion in debt and will pay an estimated $457 billion this year to service that debt, and nearly as much in each of the next two years. G77 countries are spending over one-third of government revenues on debt payments, on average; in 36 countries, it’s more than half.

So looking at Ghana’s wild ride is instructive, both for what it means for Ghana’s 35 million people and for what it may portend for other countries.

— Joe Kraus, Senior Policy Director, ONE Data

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A tale of debt, in 3 acts

Act 1. Success!. Ghana became the first graduate of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative to issue a sovereign Eurobond in 2007. That $750 million debut, priced at 8.5%, was widely seen as a sign that Africa’s debt-relief era had given way to a new era of market-based finance. Over the subsequent 14 years, Ghana took advantage of relatively low interest rates. It went to international capital markets nine times, issuing $15.6 billion in Eurobonds.

Ghana’s debt has surged

But that success was, in part, premised on the effective management of the country’s newly exploited oil wealth. When the price of oil plummeted in 2015, Ghana’s economy—and investor confidence—suffered. An IMF program helped stabilise both, and the country’s outlook brightened.

Act 2. Mess. Following COVID-19 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, interest rates surged to levels not seen in decades. That made borrowing more expensive. The average cost of borrowing for African countries rose 91% between 2020 and 2024, according to analysis by ONE Data.

Ghana did not escape unscathed. Its borrowing had accelerated right before the global shocks hit; 70% of its borrowing occurred between 2018 and 2021. With interest rates climbing, Ghana’s high debt became unsustainably expensive. In December 2022, it defaulted on roughly $21 billion in debt obligations—including $13 billion in Eurobonds—and joined the Common Framework the following month to restructure its debt. A few months later, the IMF approved a 3-year, $3 billion loan. Ghana, the rising star of the 2010s, had fallen in dramatic fashion.

Act 3. A brighter future...? Since emerging from default in October 2024, Ghana has experienced a recovery. Inflation fell from 54% in 2022 to 3.4% in April 2026. Public debt as a share of GDP dropped from 90% in 2022 to 45%. The three big credit rating agencies upgraded Ghana’s credit rating. And the country is running a fiscal surplus.

But the recovery is fragile. Looming on the horizon are several years of high debt service payments; they’ll hit just as IMF support ends, removing a critical safety net. Multilateral lending is down, jeopardising next year’s replenishment of the World Bank’s concessional lending arm, the International Development Association. That could impact the availability of cheap financing for Ghana and other lower-middle-income countries whose economic standing is fragile but whose concessional financing needs aren’t considered as critical as those of low-income countries.

Ghana’s debt service

FROM THE ONE TEAM:

• Jorge Rivera and David McNair spoke about the future of data for development at the OECD.

• David McNair summarised the outcomes of the Africa Forward Summit.

IN THE QUEUE:

• Uganda’s pro-refugee policy is under strain.

• African healthcare needs better branding.

• The crisis in Sudan is much worse than what is acknowledged.

ONE Data provides cutting edge data, tools, and analysis so that we can fight together for a more just world. See for yourself.

Something I’ve been wondering a lot about recently is what oil company CEOs really think about the Iran war. Sure, their companies are making massive windfall profits. Maybe big bonuses await them at the end of the year. But surely they realise the long-term risk these short-term gains pose for their companies as countries and consumers around the world, tired and financially taxed by the world’s dependence on fossil fuels, race to embrace clean energy.

As Simon Stiell, UNFCCC chief succinctly put it: “Those who’ve fought to keep the world hooked on fossil fuels are inadvertently supercharging the global renewables boom.”

So below we look at the clean energy boom, what developing countries are doing to seize it, and what could prevent them from succeeding.

— Joe Kraus, Senior Director, ONE Data

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3 things to know

1. A clean energy boom was underway before the Iran war. The share of global energy investments in clean energy steadily increased between 2015 and 2025, from 45% to 65%. That predates the surge in clean energy interest catalysed by the Iran war.

Explore the interactive chart

Renewables are the world’s fastest growing source of electricity. They’ve grown five times faster than gas and 16 times faster than coal since 2014. The use of coal and gas to generate electricity has plateaued over the past five years.

The shift to clean energy is also visible in the types of cars we are driving. Electric vehicle sales have increased rapidly since 2020. EV’s are projected to account for 42% of all new cars sales by 2030.

Explore the interactive chart

2. Green bonds are booming. The Iran war has sparked a surge in the issuance of green bonds from developing countries looking to fund clean energy projects to reduce their reliance on oil. Green bond issuances jumped by 53% in the first four months of the year, to $24 billion. That’s already nearly as much as in all of 2023, a record-setting year. That includes Côte d’Ivoire’s first ever green bond—notably fully funded by African institutions—to build the country’s largest solar plant, which is expected to come online next year. Investors certainly don’t mind the surge in green bonds, which provided a 10.7% return last year and tend to be less volatile than other asset classes.

Source: Bloomberg

3. Insufficient climate finance and high debt levels could derail clean energy’s momentum. The upfront costs of clean energy infrastructure are significant, and can make it challenging for countries with stretched budgets to take the plunge. That’s where climate finance could play a critical role. But donor countries aren’t providing the levels of financing needed, though development banks like the World Bank have scaled up climate finance in recent years (a trend that pressure from the US may reverse).

That’s why countries understandably are turning to the debt market. But as Sara Harcourt, ONE’s Senior Director for Development Finance, notes, “the timing couldn’t be worse.” Interest rates across all creditors nearly doubled between 2020 and 2024, a product of the pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine. Just as they had begun to ease, the Iran war sent new shocks through the global system, putting additional pressure on already debt-saddled countries. That’s forced countries to choose between foregoing investments in clean energy or taking on additional, expensive debt to finance it. Either option carries long-term consequences.

Explore the interactive chart

FROM THE ONE TEAM:

• ONE names Ambassador Mark Green as its next President and CEO.

• ONE launched its “Africa Makes the World” campaign ahead of Africa Day.

• Luca Picci created a data tool that makes it easier to access UNESCO data.

• Justin McAuley on the impossible choices facing people assaulted by violence in Sudan.

• David McNair visited an early birthplace of vaccines and came away with an appreciation for what we’ve accomplished and where we’re missing opportunities to do more.

IN THE QUEUE:

• Where’s the money for Africa’s clean energy?

• China and Europe form a carbon alliance as the US bets on fossil fuels.

• African economies are more resilient than ever.

ONE Data provides cutting edge data, tools, and analysis so that we can fight together for a more just world. See for yourself.

You’ve likely seen the headlines about the (many) successful Polymarket bets suspiciously placed just minutes before US military action in Iran and Venezuela.

If you suspected foul play, you weren’t wrong. And not just because the US announced last week the arrest of a special forces soldier who allegedly used classified information about the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to win $400,000 on Polymarket.

New analysis by the Anti-Corruption Data Collective (ACDC) provides additional evidence to validate your suspicions. Looking at bets placed over the past five years, ACDC found that long-shot Polymarket bets on military and defense actions have an average win rate of 52%.

The average win rate on all long-shot bets across Polymarket is just 14%. Bets on politics also outperform the average, with 25% of long-shots paying out.

That strongly suggests that insiders are using confidential (and sometimes classified) information to make money. That could have implications for how political and military decisions get made, and likely rewards a few “well informed” actors to the detriment of everyone else.

So below we take a closer look at prediction market bets and what they may mean for humanity.

— Joe Kraus, Senior Policy Director, ONE Data

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3 things to know

1. Big money is being bet on decisions that impact billions of people’s lives. Millions of dollars are being wagered on whether the price of oil will rise or fall. You can bet on when there will be a ceasefire in Sudan’s civil war. Or whether India will attack Pakistan or China will invade Taiwan. Or whether the US will increase interest rates. Or how long world leaders’ handshakes will last (yes, really). Or who will be the next UN Secretary-General. Or the number of tweets issued by a public figure in a day or week.

Source: Polymarket

Why it matters: Some of these seem like (and may be) harmless fun or simply foolish ways to risk one’s money. But others could have serious implications. For instance, the surge in oil prices since Israel and the US started a war with Iran has entire countries rationing oil, raised fears of recession, and spiked the price of fertilizers. Polymarket bets themselves don’t directly affect oil prices, but they create perverse incentives for people who can affect them. They may decide to use their influence to impact decisions that could be personally beneficial, even if harmful to society. Which raises concerns that…

2. Prediction markets could enable corruption. Prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi currently operate in a gray area with little regulation or transparency. That, combined with the potential to make huge profits quickly, increases the risk of abuse. It doesn’t take a criminal mind to imagine scenarios where people could use non-public information to their advantage. Like legislators or their aides betting on outcomes over which they have influence. Government officials placing surefire bets on events they are about to set in motion. Two warring factions refusing to a ceasefire because they’ve literally bet against it.

Source: Polymarket

Why it matters: The social contract is premised upon the idea that governments act in the interests of their citizens. When that doesn’t happen it erodes people’s trust in government and frays the social contract. If it persists, it can unravel the social fabric, lead to political instability, and increase the risk of violence. With people’s trust in government already low and impunity on the rise in many parts of the world, largely unregulated prediction markets risk further eroding an already troubling trust trend.

Source: 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer Global Report

3. You can literally gamble on the world’s demise. In early March, after public backlash, Polymarket pulled down markets that allowed people to bet on the possibility of nuclear war. You can place bets on the high temperatures in cities around the world, which while arguably harmless is a bit off-putting when you consider that heat waves and droughts are becoming the norm rather than the exception, with millions of people suffering through both each year.

Source: Polymarket

Why it matters: Prediction markets risk turning things like elections, geopolitics, and climate change into a kind of monetisable game or spectator sport rather than events with serious consequences. Bettors have even started pressuring people to change facts so they can win bets. What happens when elections or geopolitics start to feel transactional? What does rooting for hotter temperatures to win a bet do to one’s empathy? We are on a path to finding out.

FROM THE ONE TEAM:

• Can nowcasting lead to better real-time estimates of aid flows? We’d welcome feedback on our ideas.

• ONE Data’s debt analysis featured in a Health Policy Watch story about African leaders declaring the end of the aid era.

• David McNair on what progressives are finally learning from the far right.

IN THE QUEUE:

• New analysis suggests something fishy is happening on Polymarket.

• AIDS creeps back in parts of Zambia, a year after US cuts to HIV assistance.

• Critical minerals demand fuels poverty and pollution in poorer countries.

ONE Data provides cutting edge data, tools, and analysis so that we can fight together for a more just world. See for yourself.

The Iran war is gifting oil companies big-time profits ($150 billion and counting). But it has sped up investments in renewables by both countries and consumers looking for more reliable and less costly energy sources.

So the world’s first international conference for transitioning away from fossil fuels, which kicks off today in Santa Marta, Colombia and runs through next Wednesday, comes at an opportune moment. “We are not going back to where we were,” Fatih Birol, chief of the International Energy Agency, said last week at the IMF & World Bank Spring meetings.

Indeed, that’s the goal of the conference’s organisers and attendees: to bring together a coalition of the willing to do things differently (read: better & faster). The conference is being billed as an implementation-focused event for those already prepared to take action. That sets a different tone than climate negotiations at COP or the UN, where fossil fuel interests have successfully slowed down progress for decades.

But dear reader, lest you get carried away by hope, here’s a friendly reminder that bureaucracy and diplomacy tend to tether even the grandest ambitions. Organisers expect the official conference outcome to “acknowledge the need for negotiation of a new international treaty to regulate fossil fuels.” Not exactly an inspiring pep rally chant, nor the outcome one might hope for given the urgency. But it’s the first step in a longer process; a second conference hosted by Tuvalu sometime in the next year will aim to secure a formal mandate to negotiate a fossil fuel treaty. So settle in.

— Joe Kraus, Senior Policy Director, ONE Data

3 things to know

1a. Who’s attending: At least 53 countries with a combined GDP of over $40 trillion, annual oil demand of 10 billion barrels, and 30 trillion cubic feet of gas consumption. That includes Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Nigeria, and the UK.

1b. Who’s not attending: Some of the world’s biggest oil and gas producers and consumers. That includes China, the US, India, and major Gulf states.

Why it matters: Even though some major players like the US and China are staying away, the conference includes several significant fossil fuel producers, including Australia, Canada, Mexico, and Nigeria. That makes it harder for skeptics to dismiss the event as a gathering with no teeth. A serious commitment by those countries to transition away from fossil fuels would be hard to ignore, and could entice others to follow suit.

2. How we got here: Any mention of a fossil fuel phaseout was stripped from the final outcome text at COP30 last November, to the frustration of the more than 80 countries that supported it. Instead, the Brazil presidency announced a non-binding fossil fuel roadmap process, to be shaped by the conference that’s taking place over the next several days and then presented at COP31 later this year. Notably, the roadmap will exist outside the formal COP process, meaning it will begin from a relatively weak position.

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Why it matters: 30 years of COPs have resulted in some notable—but painfully slow—progress. Fossil fuel producers (and lobbyists) have blocked needed action and will continue to do so in perpetuity. It’s clear that real ambition will only happen through coalitions of the willing that bypass the blockers and move forward outside the formal COP process. That’s likely the best chance for urgent climate action to happen at scale. And the willingness of dozens of countries to effectively go rogue at last year’s COP and start a parallel process indicates that the genie is out of the bottle, and will make COP31 fascinating to watch.

3. The world’s largest economies spend 2.5x more on fossil fuels than on renewables. Nine fossil fuel importing countries spent $314 billion subsidizing fossil fuels in 2024. That doesn’t include the United States, the world’s largest economy, which stopped reporting official figures (the US provided an estimated $14 billion in subsidies in 2022). So spare a thought for climate scientists, whose dire warnings—now proving true—continue to be downplayed or ignored by the world’s biggest polluters.

But that is changing, and fast: The Iran war is speeding up a shift already well underway. 99% of electricity demand growth in 2025 was met by solar and wind power. If you add hydropower and nuclear to the mix, carbon-free sources of power are displacing fossil fuel sources, meaning the energy transition is already underway. And China and India are investing massive sums in green hydrogen, a technology largely overlooked by the West. Fossil fuel usage remains a major concern, however, particularly in industry, jets, ships, and many automobiles. That makes this week’s conference worth paying attention to.

FROM THE ONE TEAM:

• Devex highlights ONE Data’s analysis on the rising cost of new debt.

• William Menson on how health reform in Ghana will succeed or fail.

• David McNair on why the social good sector today looks a lot like the railway systems of the 1840s.

• Africa is being repriced. But not in the way people think.

• Justin McAuley on what it feels like to visit war-torn Sudan.

IN THE QUEUE:

• A survey suggests that G7 citizens overstate foreign aid spending by 20 times.

• A year after USAID’s death, fired workers have found few jobs and much loss.

• Transparency is the Swiss Army Knife of development.

• Why you should start a company instead of working in aid.

ONE Data provides cutting edge data, tools, and analysis so that we can fight together for a more just world. See for yourself.

There’s been a lot of discussion (including by us) about the likely effects of the Iran war on African countries, including higher interest rates and living costs. But even before the war, those countries were quietly experiencing higher borrowing costs, driving up the cost of sovereign existence. The war is likely to exacerbate those costs, but the underlying pressures on governments were already in place.

New analysis by my colleagues at ONE Data reveals a troubling pricing trend for new lending over the past five years. Higher lending costs couldn’t come at a worse time, not least of all because international aid declined by 23% in 2025, a $50 billion contraction that no country saw coming.

We’ve seen this movie before: ballooning debt and unsustainable debt payments in the Global South. The question is whether decision-makers will find ways to course correct before it’s too late.

— Joe Kraus, Senior Director, ONE Data

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3 things to know

1. African borrowing costs have surged 91% amid global interest rate pressures. These countries were paying 2.7% on average across all creditors in 2020; by 2024, that had risen to 5.1%. With African debt doubling over the past decade, rising debt costs pose a threat to growth, stability, and people’s wellbeing.

Explore an interactive version

Why it matters: Debt plays an important role in supporting economic growth and funding investments in health, education, and infrastructure when domestic resources are insufficient, but it also carries risks. High debt levels and debt servicing costs can divert resources away from essential public services: 28 African countries spend more on debt than they do on health. And rising interest rates will put already at-risk countries in further jeopardy. Even before the current crisis, 21 low-income African countries were either bankrupt or at high risk of debt distress.

Explore an interactive version

2. China’s African lending rates climbed 3.2 percentage points. China’s lending rates have risen from an average of 2.5% for African countries in 2020 to 5.7% in 2024. China also happens to be Africa’s biggest bilateral lender. Its public and private lenders held over $82 billion of Africa’s external debt in 2024, though the rate of Chinese lending to Africa has slowed in recent years.

Explore an interactive version

Why it matters: Chinese lending has long been cited as an alternative to Western-dominated finance. But Chinese finance has undergone a “Great Reversal” in recent years. China went from being a net provider of finance—transferring $48 billion to low- and lower-middle-income countries (via official and private lenders) a decade ago—to a net extractor of $24 billion. Africa has experienced the most dramatic reversal in Chinese finance. It went from receiving $30 billion to paying out $22 billion, a $52 billion swing.

3. World Bank IBRD rates have risen 3.8 percentage points. World Bank lending to Africa has surged, jumping from under $40 billion in 2017 to an estimated $100 billion last year. But the price tag on that borrowing has increased as well. The cost of borrowing from the World Bank’s International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (for IBRD countries) rose from 1.4% to 5.2% between 2020 and 2024.

Explore an interactive version

Why it matters: While IBRD lending has become more expensive, it is still far cheaper than markets. In 2024, every $100 from IBRD cost $78 in present value, a savings of $22 relative to market terms. This was narrower than in earlier years (the savings reached $52 per $100 in 2022) because IBRD rates rose along with benchmark rates. The longer maturity and grace periods of IBRD loans compared to the bond market push principal repayments far into the future, making them a more attractive (and less expensive) option. The stable low rates of the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) loans are an even better option for qualifying countries.

Explore an interactive version

FROM THE ONE TEAM:

• ONE Data’s analysis on the rising cost of debt was featured in Bloomberg, Reuters, Semafor, CNBC Africa, Africa Business, and Financial Post, and referenced by senior officials at the IMF & World Bank Spring meetings.

• David McNair spoke to the World Bank about how development finance resembles a Shakespearean tragedy, and to Devex about the Spring meetings.

• Sara Harcourt details the key findings of ONE Data’s analysis on lending costs.

IN THE QUEUE:

• What happens in Sudan will not stay in Sudan.

• “We’ve won this war”: Inside the Sudanese army’s quest for legitimacy.

• Money for nothing: the role of evidence in GiveDirectly’s success.

ONE Data provides cutting edge data, tools, and analysis so that we can fight together for a more just world. See for yourself.

Last year, when a family member in the US had a serious health scare, I called several Catholic churches in and around the area, looking for a priest to administer last rites. I was struck by how many of the priests serving in those rural, mostly white communities were African.

That is no fluke. While the number of priests has declined in much of the world, it’s grown by nearly 3% in Africa in recent years. That has made Africa the Catholic Church’s primary source of talent.

While Catholicism’s growth in the US and other parts of the Global North has stagnated, it has surged in parts of the Global South. No more so than in Africa, where it is growing so quickly that it’s shifting Catholicism’s epicenter and soon will play a significant role in shaping the religion’s future.

— Joe Kraus, Senior Director, ONE Data

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3 things to know

1. 20% of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics are African. A century ago, it was just 1%. Catholicism has grown by more than 30% in Africa over the past decade. Africa’s Catholic population has surpassed Europe’s and now trails only Latin America. Meanwhile, Catholicism’s growth has stalled or regressed in Europe and the Americas.

The surge in Catholicism’s popularity in Africa has been building for decades. A priest in Benin in the mid-1990s recounted seeing 10,000 people show up each week for catechism (a Catholic teaching), and cohorts of over 1,000 people per day receiving Confirmation (one of the religion’s seven sacraments). Today, Africa is the world’s only region where the number of men studying for the priesthood is increasing. If current trends continue, Africa could account for half of all Catholics by the 2060s.

2. Getting political is key to the church’s success in Africa. In a continent plagued by poverty and ineffective or corrupt governments, the Catholic Church addresses people’s needs and frustrations. It provides education: one in nine students in primary school attend a Catholic school. In many countries, it helps provide healthcare. It plays mediator during conflicts, monitors elections, champions democracy, and publicly calls out human rights violations and government corruption.

Part of the religion’s success is attributable to its ability to be relevant to people’s daily lives, both spiritually and physically. Rather than forcing people to wholesale adopt its traditions, the Catholic Church in Africa has managed to incorporate the dynamism of local cultures and traditions into something uniquely African while maintaining the religion’s core elements.

3. Africa’s representation at senior levels of the church lag behind. A pope didn’t visit the African continent until 1969, 11 days after the first man walked on the moon. The church’s disengagement with Africa has since changed: For instance, Pope Leo’s first major foreign trip—which kicks off on Monday—includes stops in Algeria, Cameroon, Angola, and Equatorial Guinea. But Africa doesn’t quite yet have full equality in the church. It has the fewest Bishops per parishioner in the world. It’s also underrepresented at the Vatican, where just 12% of Cardinals under the age of 80—the ones that select the pope—are African. That’s likely to change, eventually. Increased African representation at the Vatican seems “inevitable”, and many believe the next pope will be African.

Other issues pose challenges for the Catholic Church in Africa. They include simmering tensions between the Vatican and African Catholics on issues like same-sex marriage and LGBTQ+ rights (same-sex relations are prohibited by law in most African countries). And despite its rapid growth, African Catholicism has fierce competition: it is losing ground to Pentecostal churches, Africa’s fastest-growing Christian denomination. In addition, inter-religious intolerance has led to violence, most notably in countries along the Sahel with both sizable Muslim and Christian populations.

FROM THE ONE TEAM:

• The latest ODA data signals risks to future global health, prosperity, and security.

• ONE’s reaction to new figures showing the drastic cuts to UK aid in 2025.

• Our ODA dashboard makes the latest aid data easy to find and use.

• David McNair breaks down the latest aid cuts.

IN THE QUEUE:

• How Africa is changing the Catholic Church.

• How Pope Leo will approach Africa.

• America’s war is adding to Africa’s debt burden.

• How think tanks defeated democracy.

• An ingredient added to Coke, Pepsi, and M&Ms is fuelling conflict in Sudan.

ONE Data provides cutting edge data, tools, and analysis so that we can fight together for a more just world. See for yourself.

Where you live shouldn’t determine whether you live. I’d wager that the vast majority of people would agree with that statement. And yet, we live in a world in which it isn’t true. Adding insult to injury, deeply rooted structural systems exacerbate and perpetuate health inequalities, with deadly consequences.

If you’re reading this newsletter, you likely already know that. So let’s dig deeper and quantify and visualise those inequalities. My colleague, Luca Picci, recently dug into the inequitable distribution of healthcare spending. His analysis—and the cool data visualisations he designed—are worth your time.

— Joe Kraus, Senior Director, ONE Data

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3 things to know

1. A fraction of the world’s health spending goes to low-income countries. High-income countries account for 78% of total health spending. That enables them to fund preventive care, robust health infrastructure, and oftentimes universal coverage. They spend $3,038 per person on average on healthcare. Low-income countries, meanwhile, spend just $45 per person—67 times less.

That spending disparity hits hard: If you live in a high-income country, you stand a good chance of celebrating at least 80 birthdays. The average person living in a low-income country will experience 15 fewer birthdays. That’s roughly 5,500 fewer sunrises, sunsets, and days spent building memories with children, grandchildren, and friends.

2. People in low-income countries often pick up the healthcare tab. Out-of-pocket payments account for 43% of health spending in low-income countries, compared to around 13% in high-income ones. In 27 countries, out-of-pocket payments account for over half of all health spending. In some countries, like Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, and Cameroon, over two-thirds of health expenditure is paid out-of-pocket.

That exacerbates inequality: Out-of-pocket spending is one of the most inequitable ways to finance healthcare. Families without resources often deplete savings, sell assets, or cut spending on other essentials like food, education, and housing to cover medical bills. Others avoid treatment altogether, leaving health needs unmet. Sustainable public financing, pooling of resources, and stronger financial protection policies are essential to shift that burden away from individuals and families.

3. Preventative healthcare gets squeezed. Most governments tend to prioritise treating illness and disease over preventing them. Our analysis found a counterintuitive pattern: The share of prevention spending is higher in lower-income countries than in high-income countries. That is something to celebrate, right? Right??

Wrong (sort of): Prevention in lower-income countries is largely financed by external sources. Donor-funded vaccine campaigns, disease control programs, and other preventive initiatives increase the amount spent on prevention. While it’s good that prevention gets funded, the reliance on external financing poses a vulnerability. If (ahem, when) that money dries up, so too does prevention spending.

FROM THE ONE TEAM:

• Planning to be at the World Bank & IMF Spring Meetings? Register for our co-hosted event with the AU on translating G20 commitments into concrete action.

• ONE’s CEO Ndidi Okonkwo Nwuneli managed to find time in her busy schedule to finish a PhD.

• David McNair spoke with the Lead Change podcast about how data can mobilise coalitions for change.

• Adrian Lovett spoke to The i Paper about cuts to life-saving support leaving the world more vulnerable to the next pandemic.

IN THE QUEUE:

• Nigerians have a Taylor Swift problem.

• 10 clichés in African governance discourse that need to die.

• Make the world safe again.

• How the solar boom is playing out in one West African village.

ONE Data provides cutting edge data, tools, and analysis so that we can fight together for a more just world. See for yourself.

A Climate Impact Lab report published this week puts into perspective the inequality of global warming. Heat deaths are expected to increase dramatically in certain parts of the world, offset in part by fewer cold-related deaths in other places. Below, we look at the biggest losers of a warming planet (you’ll never guess who… 😳).

— Joe Kraus, Senior Director, ONE Data

BUT FIRST, A QUIZ

We’re quietly cooking up the next version of ONE Data—and you’re a part of it.

Got 3 minutes? Fill out this short survey and tell us what works, what doesn’t, and what you wish existed. If this is your first time hearing that we have a data platform, even better—we want to hear from you, too.

As a thank you, respondents will be invited to:

• Test new data features before anyone else

• Join a small working group shaping ONE Data

• Attend off-the-record, closed-door sessions with our team and other major leaders in the development community

👉 Take the survey

3 things to know

1. Where you live determines how likely you are to die from climate change. Lower-income countries stand to lose 10 times more people to deaths from high temperatures than rich countries. Hotter regions, including North Africa, the Middle East, and Southwest Asia, will be hit hardest. Parts of Algeria, Burkina Faso, Niger, Pakistan, and Sudan are expected to see increases exceeding 80 deaths per 100,000 people. That’s on par with the rate of malaria deaths in places like Nigeria and Sierra Leone today.

Why it matters: Add climate change to the many ways in which people in high- and lower-income countries experience the world differently. Inequality is a key factor. The East African country of Djibouti is projected to see an increase in heat-related deaths double that of oil-rich Kuwait, despite their similar climate.

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2. Without economic growth, there would be seven times more temperature-related deaths globally. That’s roughly equivalent to global deaths from suicide. That points to the importance of sustained economic growth and development. Because without both, the fatal impact of heatwaves will be far greater. And they’ll be centred on the populations already struggling the most to get by: 16 of the 20 countries facing the most new heat-related deaths are lower income.

Why it matters: Lower-income countries are in desperate need of climate finance to help them address the climate change caused by rich countries. Yet rich countries have dragged their feet and offered plentiful excuses and insufficient finance. At the same time, they’ve designed a climate finance reporting system that enables them to claim more in climate finance than they actually contribute.

3. People in lower-income countries are being disproportionately impacted by a climate crisis they didn’t create. Having neither caused nor benefited from climate change, they now bear the brunt of its impacts. Meanwhile, the US and China have caused an estimated $10 trillion and $9 trillion in climate damages since 1990.

Why it matters: The injustices of colonialism and imperialism continue to compound. Today’s industrialised countries burned massive amounts of greenhouse gas-emitting fossil fuels to catalyse their economic growth. A lot of that fossil fuel was extracted from lower-income countries. Now those countries are being told (often by people in rich countries) to reduce their use of fossil fuels to protect the planet at the same time they are trying to industrialise and grow. It’s a dark irony not lost on populations tired of being told to “do as we say, not as we do” by Western powers.

FROM THE ONE TEAM:

• Climate finance reporting is a mess. Here’s how to fix it.

• David McNair offers five observations on how the world is being changed during a volatile time.

IN THE QUEUE:

• The Iran war is pushing consumers to break up with fossil fuels.

• Why debt restructuring may be the least bad option for Senegal.

• Turning polycrisis into polytunity (and why “polycrisis” may be a Western-centric term).

ONE Data provides cutting edge data, tools, and analysis so that we can fight together for a more just world. See for yourself.

I once spent several months living with a family in rural Uganda. Few people in the village had access to electricity or running water. One of the family members, a 13-year old boy named Mikey, spent his days at the local school and the rest of his time cooking, cleaning, and hauling water from a nearby stream.

Mikey was hardworking and resourceful, but he was not well educated. His school had some 200 students ages 5-18, and one teacher. At night, I would sometimes try to help Mikey with his homework. Two things quickly became clear: There were no textbooks; the students just wrote down what the teacher said, and 2) all of the classes were taught in English. Mikey spoke so little English that most of our communication involved hand gestures and smiles. He wasn’t learning anything.

Mikey’s story is a microcosm of a big problem: Billions of people living in lower-income countries are unable to achieve their full potential because the systems in which they live don’t enable it. Some of them are amongst the most innovative and hardworking people I’ve met. With access to better education and more opportunities, many of them would no doubt do great things.

The unrealised potential of billions of people is an unspoken tragedy of our time. Poverty and inequality are imposing a tax on humanity.

And we are all paying.

— Joe Kraus, Senior Director, ONE Data

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3 things to know

1. Untapped potential is the single most significant difference between someone living in a high vs. a lower-income country. The global average for R&D researchers—the people involved in conceiving or creating new knowledge, products, or innovation—is 1,420 per million people. For context, Europe’s average is 3,935, North America’s exceeds 4,800. Denmark’s? 8,736. In contrast, the average number of researchers per 1 million people in low-income countries is 176. In Uganda, it’s 12. TWELVE.

Here’s what that means in practice: Denmark has over 51,000 researchers. Uganda, with a population eight times larger, has fewer than 700. That has obvious implications for the ability of Uganda—or dozens of other countries with relatively few researchers—to discover and develop new innovations, advance their economies, and help people escape poverty. Factors like poverty, poor education, and a lack of electricity, amongst others, limit opportunities for individuals to become researchers and innovators.

2. The disparity between rich and lower-income countries starts at an early age. In most high-income countries, less than 1% of children aged 6-11 are out of school. The average across low-income countries is 21%. In Nigeria—Africa’s most populous country—nearly 1 in 4 children are out of school.

Why it matters: That means that millions of children around the world are not learning the knowledge and skills needed to reach their full potential. And unequal access to primary education impacts higher education levels. Just 8% of Africans over the age of 25 have a bachelor’s degree. That’s half the global average and four times lower than in high-income countries.

3. Having few university graduates results in fewer people with technical expertise. Take IT, for instance. Africa has just four IT professionals per 10,000 people. That’s 10 times below the global average, and 30 times less than high-income countries.

Why it matters: The low number of IT professionals will make it difficult—if not impossible—for African countries to compete in a world in which AI and computer technology dominate. It also significantly diminishes the possibilities for new technology discoveries and tech start-ups. Who knows how many inventions or Apples, Googles, Nvidias, or OpenAIs will fail to be launched as a result?

FROM THE ONE TEAM:

• ONE Data’s analysis of shifting development finance flows featured in Devex.

• Adrian Lovett’s response to the UK’s disastrous aid cuts featured in The Guardian, Independent, The Telegraph, and Daily Mirror.

• Elise Legault and Anthony Salloum highlight a glaring gap in Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s travel itinerary: Africa.

IN THE QUEUE:

• African sports fans, doctors, and musicians lament US travel ban.

• Africa’s energy revolution must be African-led.

• A former Pakistani minister on AI’s potential and dangers for developing countries.

ONE Data provides cutting edge data, tools, and analysis so that we can fight together for a more just world. See for yourself.

Once again, billions of people find themselves impacted by a war of choice they had no say over. Four years ago, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine upended global supply chains, causing oil, food, and fertiliser prices to skyrocket and leading to higher interest rates. That had impacts far beyond Ukraine (as we noted at the time).

The US-Israel war with Iran is evolving quickly, so its fallout remains uncertain. But should it continue for several weeks or months, the consequences for developing countries are predictable, and likely dire, as we outline below.

— Joe Kraus, Senior Policy Director at ONE Data

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4 things to know

1. Oil price hikes will yield some winners and a lot of losers. Oil producing countries—think Angola, Brazil, Guyana, Nigeria, Malaysia, and Mexico—stand to benefit from higher oil prices. Oil importing countries, on the other hand, are poised for tough times. Some African countries only carry enough oil to cover a few days’ worth of demand; many others carry less than three weeks worth.

Source: Bloomberg

Why it matters: Angola and Nigeria planned for an average oil price of $61 and $65 per barrel in their 2026 budgets. Higher prices would represent a revenue windfall, especially if prices stay elevated for months. Many oil rich countries, however—especially in sub-Saharan Africa—lack sufficient domestic refining capabilities to meet their growing needs. So while they export oil and gas, they also import refined fuels. That means higher prices cut both ways. The budgets of non-oil producing developing countries would be hit hardest by higher prices, forcing them to take on more debt or cut spending (read: cut public services). Both options are bad, and could prove destabilising.

Source: Bloomberg

2. Say hello to higher food prices. Oil and gas are used to help grow or transport almost everything we eat. Natural gas is used to make nitrogen fertilisers like urea. About one-third of the global fertiliser trade flows through the Strait of Hormuz, which is effectively closed. That’s caused a rapid spike in fertiliser prices, with more on the horizon. The average price of urea is up nearly 30% since the war’s outbreak. Nitrogen prices could double and phosphate prices may increase 50% if the war doesn’t end quickly.

Source: Global Footprint Network

Why it matters: Higher fertiliser prices can quickly lead to higher food prices. The World Bank estimates that every 1% increase in fertiliser prices can push up global food prices by 0.45%. That puts the squeeze on both farmers and consumers. High oil and gas prices played a key role the three times this century (2008, 2011, 2022) when food prices spiked. And higher food prices would come at a time when more than 300 million people already face acute hunger, aid budgets are shrinking, and existing humanitarian needs are underfunded.

3. Stronger dollar, rising interest rates, precarious debt. Price increases on oil, food, and other products could help strengthen the US dollar and lead to weaker local currencies and rising inflation. That would put further pressure on developing countries’ trade balances and likely force governments to hike interest rates. That dynamic is already on display in South Africa, where traders spooked by the war in Iran quickly reversed expectations of an interest rate cut.

Source: Bloomberg

Why it matters: Developing countries will pay roughly $450 billion to service $3.5 trillion in debt. 33 of those countries are already in or at high risk of debt distress. Higher interest rates—exacerbated by higher import costs and weaker currencies—would put government budgets in a serious bind. If the war and its aftershocks last for an extended period, some countries may need to restructure their debt or risk defaulting. The lack of an effective international debt restructuring mechanism increases the risk of the latter.

Developing countries’ debt stocks

Explore an interactive version of the chart

4. Significant losses of remittances from migrant workers. Foreign residents account for the majority of the population in several Middle East countries, including nearly 90% in Qatar and the UAE. Most of those workers send money home to support their families. The war has caused a number of Gulf countries to reduce or pause activities, including oil production and transportation. Should the war drag on, the loss of remittances will be felt back home by people who depend on them and are being squeezed by higher costs of living.

Explore an interactive version of the chart

Why it matters: The impact could be consequential. Millions of people in Africa and Asia are highly reliant on income generated in the Middle East, a critical pipeline now threatened by the war. Global remittances to developing countries exceed foreign direct investment and development aid, combined. The Middle East accounts for 15-20% of total remittances to developing countries; in recent years, that’s been $110-120 billion annually. That makes it one of the world’s largest remittance corridors. India receives over one-third of its $135 billion in remittances from the Middle East. Over half of the remittances received in Bangladesh and Pakistan originated in Gulf countries.

FROM THE ONE TEAM:

• Elise Legault on Canada’s open goal with Africa.

• Adrian Lovett spoke to The Independent about the UK’s questionable use of an already slimmed down aid budget.

HELP WANTED:

• Data Engineer: Help build the data infrastructure that powers ONE Data’s products and platforms.

• Senior Product Manager: Lead the strategy, development, and ongoing improvement of ONE Data’s digital products and platforms.

IN THE QUEUE:

• How the war in Iran could ravage global food security.

• Migrant workers are disproportionately impacted by war in Iran.

• The little-known commodity fueling Sudan’s civil war.

ONE Data provides cutting edge data, tools, and analysis so that we can fight together for a more just world. See for yourself.