Logan Cochrane

Hamad bin Khalifa University | HBKU · College of Public Policy

This paper combines qualitative and quantitative research methods in an exploratory study of borrowing and debt in rural southern Ethiopia in order to understand the complexities of the rural finance system and frequency of borrowing and debt in rural, smallholder settings. By comparing geospatial location in relation to access to infrastructure, m...

Agriculture accounts for more than 40% of the Ethiopian economy, 85% of all employment, and is driven primarily by rural smallholders. Those living in rural areas face a range of short-term, seasonal, annual, and long-term vulnerabilities. This chapter analyzes the range of dynamic, and sometimes unpredictable, challenges in Wolaita Zone, southern...

Individuals want to know which organisations to donate to, and a variety of organisations have developed ranking systems to guide them. This paper explores charity ranking, with a particular focus on the increasing role of impact and ‘cost-effectiveness’. Ranking systems are composed of a selection of metrics, which may miss important components an...

With one third of the population living in poverty and millions experiencing chronic food insecurity, the government of Ethiopia faces difcult and complex challenges. One of the most robust and effective social protection efforts is the Productive Safety Net Program, which has served more than seven million people since 2005. This article explores...

Countries in the Arabian Gulf are reliant upon hydrocarbons for revenues, exports, industries and funding services. It is largely assumed that the global energy transition will be gradual, as reflected in planning and strategy documents. However, energy breakthroughs can change the global energy system. This Perspective article seeks to provoke a d...

Since the 1950s, the Nigerian government has undertaken various reforms and assessments to improve educational planning and delivery. Schemes and legal frameworks, such as Alternative Schools, Universal Basic Education, the Open School Program and the Child Right Act, exemplify efforts to universalise elementary education in the country. Yet, up to...

A podcast about sustainability with perspectives on and from the Middle East. برنامج "مُستدام"حول الاستدامة في الشرق الأوسط وشمال أفريقيا

• يتناول مستقبل الاستدامة في قطر. • يقدم تغطية واسعة للاستدامة بما في ذلك الأبعاد السياسية والبيئية والإنسانية. • يعرض دعوات للعمل من خلال اقتراحات لبعض السياسات العامة. • الكتاب متاح للجميع عن طريق الوصول المفتوح، مما يعني أن لدينا وصول مجاني وغير محدود.

NGOs are perceived as organisations that are always seeking funding. However, there are many instances where donations are refused by NGOs. This counter-intuitive decision, given the often grave humanitarian needs, is not well documented beyond brief references or individual cases. Refusal is an expression of values and principles, important for ac...

In 2007/2008, a triple crisis of food, fuel and finance sparked a global rush for agricultural land; tens of millions of hectares were acquired, primarily by foreign investors, within countries in the Global South. Amidst those transactions, intergovernmental organizations, national governments, investors, and community members envisioned what “suc...

In the past two decades, Zimbabwe has been confronted with a concerning increase in the number of out-of-school children and youth (OOSC). Emerging evidence suggests that nearly a million children fall into this category, representing approximately half of the country’s adolescent population. This phenomenon has significantly impacted on Zimbabwe’s...

The political and economic narrative has shifted from developmentalism to the homegrown economy in post-2018 Ethiopia, but maintains the hegemony of the developmental state project of nation-building. This article investigates the shift to homegrown economic narratives, assesses the alignment with macroeconomic data and various sources and their im...

Access to water has improved globally; however, nearly 800 million people continue to lack access, particularly in resource constrained contexts. Current efforts are not on track to meet the Sustainable Development Goals aim of safe and affordable drinking water for all. Innovative and contextualized solutions are required. This article describes a...

The 2023 expansion of BRICS (hereafter BRICS+) has resulted in a flurry of journalistic and political narratives. These narratives span a spectrum, between perspectives that emphasize the continuity of the existing global order on the one end and those that note the dawn of a new era and the end of a unipolar world on the other. These discussions h...

Citizenship and residency laws in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries developed during a similar time period, with similar influences, and as a result had common characteristics. In recent years, this has begun to change, with new pathways to permanent residency and citizenship developing in the region. This paper takes a comparative case study...

The Arabian Gulf region has witnessed tremendous social, political and economic change in recent decades. The State of Qatar's ambitious global visions mean that it is a significant player in both creating and riding these transformational waves. Yet with a minority citizen population of only 12%, protecting the language, culture and values of the...

The aim of this study was to create a composite food security index that takes into account the four aspects of food security, which are availability, accessibility, usage, and stability, and to analyze how families' food security status changes over time. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) methods were used to create food security indices for each...

Purpose The new additions to Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) expand into the broader Middle East and North Africa region, adding some of the largest populations and strongest economies of the region to BRICS+. Since the BRICS summit in August 2023, significant media attention has been given to the impacts of these shifting geo...

Governments around the world are working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and the transportation system is focal to the transition toward more renewable energy sources. The State of Qatar has transitioned buses in its public transportation system to be fully electric and has set a 2030 target for 10% of all new sales of vehicles to be electric v...

The impacts of climate change vary by location and severity, will be experienced over a range of timescales, and governments are not equally able to respond to risks and hazards in the same way. Yet, despite the rapid expansion of climate-related evidence, few studies categorize risks and hazards to support better-informed decision-making regarding...

In the past two decades, foreign direct investment (FDI) in emerging economies has witnessed substantial growth in the agricultural sector. Globally, more than a quarter of these investments have failed. Beyond case studies, the factors that contribute to these failures have been subject to limited research. To address this research gap, this artic...

Qatar is caught in the struggle between reformation of its educational system to create a dynamic, local workforce and prepare their citizens for the competitive global market for higher education and jobs, whilst preserving the country's values, tradition and language. This paper examines the recent policy shifts, hitherto underex-plored, analysin...

Most social protection programmes express the state’s commitment to human and social rights. The allocation of social protection as a public good attracts political and public interest due to its encompassing nature. Both the vulnerable and the non-vulnerable require social protection despite the varying access and equity differences. This calls fo...

International and national actors are increasingly calling for a double or triple nexus approach to humanitarian, development, and peace activities to improve the flexibility of programming, particularly in complex crises. The double or triple nexus approach can, however, also replicate or create new challenges. To avoid this, the double and triple...

This article critically analyses the history of the Ethiopian sugar industry, with emphasis on drivers, decision-making and processes of incorporation and exclusion aiming to transform lowlands. We argue that the government has used a state-led modernization and expansion of the sugar industry to consolidate the power of central governments. Throug...

The large-scale acquisition of land by investors intensified following the 2007/2008 triple crises of food, energy, and finance. In the years that followed, tens of millions of hectares of land were leased or sold for agricultural investment. This phenomenon has resulted in a growing body of scholarship that seeks to explain trends, institutional r...

This open access book provides a topical overview of the key sustainability issues in Qatar, focusing on environmental sustainability from a socio-political perspective. The transition to a sustainable Qatar requires engagement with diverse areas of social-political, human, and environmental development. On the environmental aspects, the contributo...

The Qatar National Vision of 2030 has identified bold and transformational goals for the country. As envisioned by the State of Qatar, the transition to sustainable Qatar weaves together four pillars of economic, social, human, and environmental development. Yet, the country faces significant challenges, and with these challenges a range of options...

The strategic vision of the State of Qatar seeks to pursue development while aiming for a balanced approach to the social, human, economic, and environmental pillars of the vision. The legal and governance mechanisms supporting this transition are only effective when implemented, and can be hindered by limited access to data for decision-making. In...

For decades, as evidenced in programming and research, the humanitarian community has recognised gender equality and equity as integral to effective programming and response. Drawing upon ninety-nine publications indexed on the Web of Science and Google Scholar, this paper explores available evidence on gender and crisis settings in Africa to synth...

Recurrent and concurrent crises call for new development paradigms, as dominant theories of economic development are not fostering equity or sustainability. We argue that part of the reason is that the conceptualization of development, and the resulting metrics driving decision-making, are narrow. Building on work that proposes adding values/ethics...

Billions of tons of waste are generated annually, with the amount of waste rapidly increasing and its management expected to worsen. Qatar is a small and wealthy country in the Arabian Peninsula that is undergoing enormous economic and urban development. This study presents the results of a systematic literature review on waste management in Qatar...

شهدت قطر نمواً اقتصادياً سريعاً في العقود الأخيرة، ووجهت استثمارات هائلة نحو قطاع التعليم بهدف تحسين النتائج التعليمية. وتطمح رؤية قطر الوطنية 2030 لتشجيع التعلم مدى الحياة؛ ومن العوامل المساعدة على ذلك تعزيز ثقافة القراءة. وتهدف الدراسة التي بين أيدينا إلى تقييم أحد البرامج التي سعت نحو تمكين هذا التغيير والوسائل المستخدمة في هذا الصدد، لتقدم بهذا...

Social protection programmes do not generally account for gendered power dynamics. Oftentimes, they target women only as beneficiaries, which can intensify gendered disparities. This case study uses a mixed methods research approach to conduct a gender analysis of the Productive Safety Net Programme in Ethiopia. We find the programme has progressiv...

Significant agricultural investment has taken place across Africa over the most recent two decades. An expanding set of literature analyzes these investments, often using case study and comparative approaches. While this is important, not all agricultural investments are equal, yet they are often described as being such. Few studies utilize large d...

Based on an ethnographic case study of Bodi and Mursi pastoralist responses to sugar industries in South Omo, Ethiopia, this study aimed to comprehend the approach of a modernist land development-induced villagisation programme and its effect on the socioeconomic rights of pastoralists. The article probes how and why land development activities and...

Within bilateral and multilateral funding circles, there has been a strong and growing emphasis on the importance of understanding and responding to gender inequalities in humanitarian settings. However, given the often-short funding cycles, among other operational challenges, there is limited scope to incorporate interventions that address the roo...

Top tier academic journals claim to publish the most rigorous, peer reviewed research. This evidence based found therein is utilized to support decision making for sustainable development. In parallel, many journals that are published in the Global South are accused of written about Ethiopia and published in a top tier academic journal. The narrati...

Qatar has experienced rapid economic development in recent decades and has made large investments in the education sector to improve learning outcomes. The Qatar National Vision of 2030 also aspires to encourage lifelong learning, one enabler of which is fostering a reading culture. This paper assesses one program that has aimed to enable this chan...

The literature on Ethiopia emphasizes a top-down powerful state that dictates public life, and citizens who are passive and submissive subjects. Drawing on diverse cases of social movements that resulted in changes in government decision, law or policy, this chapter argues that state-society relations are more complex than what is depicted. The cas...

Ethiopia is one of the world’s least urbanized nations, with less than a fifth of the population being classified as urban. However, the country is rapidly urbanizing. The current urbanization rate (2.2% for the 2010-2030 period) is greater than the global, continental and regional average growth rates (United Nations Department of Economic and Soc...

Following decades of neoliberal conditionalities on African governments, starting from the early 2000s social protection program has expanded rapidly across Africa. One of the prominent modalities for structuring social protection is cash transfer programs. At least 46 African countries have adopted some form of such initiatives. The chapter tracks...

Qatar has rapidly expanded its education system, but outcomes are lower than comparable countries. This article explores factors outside of formal education that influence learning, namely parental educational attainment and household libraries. Evidence shows associations of these traits with positive reading habits, yet limited research is availa...

During the era of the EPRDF in Ethiopia (1991-2019) social protection developed in specific ways, in design and implementation. This article reflects on this period to explore how these manifestations occurred, within the context of broader state building efforts. While rapidly increasing in type and coverage, social protection benefited some and e...

Ethiopia has experienced high rates of macroeconomic growth and reports a significant decline of people living in poverty. At the same time, inequality is increasing. In order to understand what is driving inequality, in particular in rural agricultural contexts, we use a mixed-methods approach rooted in knowledge coproduction. The results identify...

This systematic review analyzes all 260 studies published in the Web of Science on gender and climate change in Africa. While there is no strong methodological bias, comparative case studies and sex disaggregated analyses predominate from a limited set of countries. Many articles covered the agrarian sector by comparing women's and men's on-farm vu...

Critical decolonial assessments of International Political Economy (IPE) curricula have found a continued dominance of Euro-Western perspectives. However, these critical assessments have often been of specific programs or courses. In this article, we open the canvas wider in our quantitative assessment of privilege and marginalization, by conductin...

As United Nations Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed, noted at the 2021 Africa Regional Food Systems Summit Dialogue, food insecurity is rising in many African countries (see 13 July 2021 address). The global pandemic has not only put global health inequality on display; it has also done the same for food security: nearly one out of five Afri...

Ethiopia has made significant progress preventing famine. However, food insecurity remains a significant challenge for the country. As recent as 2016, one in five Ethiopians relied on emergency assistance. Ethiopia and Food Security analyzes what makes people vulnerable to food insecurity, by analyzing individual households as well as the broader s...

Agriculture is the predominant livelihood in rural Ethiopia, where chronic food insecurity is prevalent. In 2005, Ethiopia launched the Productive Safety Net Program, aiming to improve rural livelihoods and food security. This study focuses on the primarily modality of the programme: food and/or cash in exchange for labour. We analyse how the suppo...

For the past decade, the land rush discourse has analyzed foreign investment in land and agriculture around the world, with Africa being a continent of particular focus due to the scale of acquisitions that have taken place. Gabon, a largely forested state in Central Africa, has been neglected in the land rush conversations, despite having over hal...

As the global population continues to urbanize, increasing pressure is put upon urban centers and the carrying capacity of the already built-up areas. One way to meet these demands is horizontal expansion, which requires new lands to become incorporated into urban centers. In most cases, this demand is met by converting peri-urban land into urban l...

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has become a leading contributor of foreign aid, in terms of percentage of gross national income as well as in total amount. Historically, Emirati aid was opaque, and little was known about the foreign aid portfolio. This changed after 2009 when the UAE began to submit detailed, project-level data to the Development A...

“This is an exemplary political economy analysis of what has happened across Africa since the contemporary global land grabbing occurred more than a decade ago. While the topic and questions addressed may sound familiar to many readers who have been tracking the issue over the last decade, this volume provides a much needed up to date information,...

This chapter underscores the relevance of international political economy (IPE) to this book’s contents by discussing the transnational nature of large-scale land acquisitions and the multi-scalar networks that permit and accompany such processes of acquisition (or ‘grabbing’). We connect the question of land to IPE to uncover the polycentric forms...

Ethiopia has drawn global attention as one of the epicentres of the global rush for agricultural land. The government is actively seeking out foreign investors and offering attractive incentive packages. These land deals, however, have not been well-received by local populations due to resultant controversies and negative impacts. Concerns surround...

What can we learn from an analysis of the transnational land rush in Africa? And, what may be beyond it? To answer these questions, this chapter starts by examining the context of large-scale land acquisitions in various African countries, including those not written about in this volume. Then, we compare and contrast the various case studies exami...

After years of widespread protest, Ethiopia experienced a historic change of leadership in 2018. In addition to the positive changes that took place, the political reforms also brought forth uncertainty and, in some places, resulted in greater insecurity. This At-Issue article focuses upon one issue, the illegal weapons trade, which has expanded in...

Using Malawi as a case study, this commentary takes a retrospective view of the HIV/AIDS epidemic to draw lessons about the spread of, and government response to, Covid-19 in Southern Africa. With the legacy of colonial-ism and the distortions wrought in by structural adjustment programs still alive, we argue that the same factors that propelled th...

South Sudan is one the largest recipients of official development assistance. Given the complexity of the operational environment, there is a need to learn from the lessons gained to-date. This article seeks to enable better-informed decision making based on a synthesis from humanitarian and development evaluation reports, which offer insight for e...

Social protection programs need to be suited to the specific context within which they are implemented. To minimize barriers and constraints in implementation, program design needs to integrate and respond to the views of client households and potential beneficiaries, ideally with ongoing feedback mechanisms to better respond both to constrainers a...

This issue of NokokoPod presents a discussion of the informal institutions in Somaliland. The annotated PDF is available on the Nokoko journal website. This conversation took place between June 30th and September 1st, with Logan Cochrane in Ottawa and Ahmed M. Musa in Hargeisa. This version of the PDF has been reviewed by Logan Cochrane and Ahmed M...

This issue of NokokoPod presents a discussion on decolonizing higher education and curricula. The annotated PDF is available on the Nokoko journal website. This conversation took place on August 4th, with Logan Cochrane in Ottawa and Ali A. Abdi Vancouver. This version of the PDF has been reviewed by Logan Cochrane and Ali A. Abdi. In addition to t...

The literature on international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) has focused primarily on large INGOs, which capture the majority of total INGO spending but represent a small number of total INGOs. Over the past two decades, the number of INGOs has more than tripled throughout the global North, which has ushered in a decentralization of the s...

This issue of NokokoPod presents a discussion on the historic rerun election in Malawi and the future of governance in the country. The annotated PDF is available on the Nokoko journal website. This conversation took place on July 9th, with Logan Cochrane and Paul Mkandawire both in Canada. This version of the PDF has been reviewed by Logan Cochran...

Di Nunzio, Marco. 2019: The Act of Living: Street Life, Marginality and Development in Urban Ethiopia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 245 pp. US$115. ISBN-13: 978-1501736261 (Hardcover).

The UN Charter of 1945 asks states to abstain from using or threatening to use force in their international relations. At the same time, this document upholds a state’s right to self-defense in response to aggression from other states. This brief will explore how pre-emptive strikes are used as self-defense and the ethical implications behind it.

This issue of NokokoPod presents a discussion on responsible sourcing and management of minerals and metals, within the context of a sector that is confronting serious allegations of human rights violations. The annotated PDF is available on the Nokoko journal website. This conversation took place on May 5th, with Logan Cochrane and Joanne Lebert b...

Justice in an international context means ensuring accountability for crimes that are perpetrated against some of the most vulnerable people in the world today. These crimes often include genocide, war crimes, and torture. In cases where the oppressed cannot fight for their justice, it is imperative that the international community, in the form of...

According to Koplan JP, Bond TC, Merson MH, et al (2009), Global Health is the area of study, research and practice that places a priority on improving health and achieving equity in health for all people worldwide, especially in low income countries. In congruence with this, this brief seeks to explore the global health sector and the ethical dime...

More than a decade has passed since the triple crises of food, energy and finance in the period 2007-2008. Those events turned global investor interest to agriculture and its commodities and thereafter the leasing of tens of millions of hectares of land. This article reviews and synthesizes the available evidence regarding the agricultural investme...

This brief examines the ethical arguments for and against borders as well as explores the feasibility of open borders.

The global market is a volatile force that has been heavily integrated into our institutions and livelihoods. However, ethics must be able to answer this with reasonable limitations in order to hold firms and those that utilize their goods and services accountable.

At what cost is peace attained and maintained? How do we morally integrate peace? How do we set aside historical differences? Questions like these are ethically addressed in this brief.

Who owns Big Data? Who should own and control it? This brief explores the ethical dimensions of this increasingly socio-economic force.

Rural livelihoods in Ethiopia are vulnerable due to their reliance upon variable rainfall and the lack of access to irrigation. Irrigation coverage in the country is low, as the existing systems tend to cover state-run and commercial operations. There is significant potential for irrigation to play a transformative role in rural lives and livelihoo...

This issue of NokokoPod explores the Cape Town drought of 2017 and 2018 and the lessons learned from it. The podcast for this discussion is available on the Nokoko journal website. This conversation took place on March 4th, with Logan Cochrane in Canada and Gina Ziervogel in South Africa. This version of the PDF has been reviewed by Logan Cochrane...

This issue of NokokoPod presents a discussion on an urbanizing Africa and its potential urban futures. The audio connection was not strong and as a result an audio podcast is not available for this discussion, however the annotated PDF is available on the Nokoko journal website. This conversation took place on March 18th, with Logan Cochrane in Can...

Kelly, Anthony and Westoby, Peter. 2018: Participatory Development Practice: Using Traditional and Contemporary Frameworks. London, UK: Practical Action Publishing. 234 pp. £23.70 (Paperback). ISBN: 9781853299992.

The ethics of starting, and conducting, war have been debated for millennia. As the tactics and technology rapidly develop, ethical thinking and perspectives must also develop. For example, there are military vehicles that are able to be remotely controlled and there are sentry guns that use Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to fire at target...

The face of warfare is changing. Countries, firms, and citizens are now facing a force that is both incredibly hard to regulate and very easy to misuse. Cyber warfare is one of the new forms that states, groups and individuals have utilised in order to carry out attacks online and across borders. This brief explores how cyberwarfare is changing war...

Since the 1960s, participatory mapping has been used throughout the world as a means for communities to engage in land-use related processes. Participatory mapping is the creation of maps by nonexpert individuals, groups and communitiesd often with the involvement of supporting organizations including governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGO...