How businesses bounce back after conflicts: lessons from Côte d’Ivoire

For developing countries to have lasting development, they must have economic systems that are resilient to shocks such as climate change, natural disasters and conflict.

Recent research has focused on evaluating the long-term effects of these potential economic shocks, and how to mitigate them. For example, several studies highlighted the fact that natural disasters and violent conflict have long-term effects on households.

In a recent study we looked at the resilience of businesses in Côte d’Ivoire after the 2010-2011 electoral crisis. Businesses play a vital role in Côte d’Ivoire’s economy. Small to medium-sized businesses alone employ nearly half the working population and account for around 20% of the country’s GDP. Yet few studies have looked at the mid to long-term effects of adverse shocks on businesses…

 

Typhoon Hagibis highlights need for multilingual emergency alerts in Japan

Alerts in Japanese warning about deadly Typhoon Hagibis left many foreign nationals confused as to whether they needed to evacuate, underscoring a need for multilingual services.

When Hagibis made landfall on Oct. 12, Nhu Hoang, a 27-year-old Vietnamese visiting Sendai, panicked as she could not understand a Japanese phrase meaning “evacuation advisory” in an emergency email issued by the local government.

“English would be very useful” at times like this, said Hoang, who lives in Tokyo.

The typhoon left more than 80 people dead and the torrential rain it brought caused numerous embankments to collapse, flooding tens of thousands of homes and large areas of farmland…