The use of intelligence.
Not necessarily artificial intelligence and the many ways the technology promises a future free of problems. But a more profound desire for intelligence–the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or difficult situations–in how the world works and ways we can improve it, especially in striving for global prosperity.
There are three seemingly disparate reasons I think using more intelligence will become prevalent in 2025. The first two are associated with articles I wrote in 2024, while the third is a damning verdict on the state of development in our world.
The first: In 2024, the most popular piece I wrote–by far–was “The great miscalculation–and exit–of multinationals in Africa.” In it, I explained how many multinationals stopped doing business in Africa almost a decade ago and how we were seeing similar headlines. What was interesting is that the reasons these multinationals were leaving were the same as why they left in 2015: “failing or inexistent infrastructure, smaller than expected consumer markets, struggling institutions, and corruption. In effect, what they experienced in Africa was a disabling environment for business–as opposed to an enabling one.” But as I described, Africa “has never promised an enabling business environment, nor has it guaranteed ease of doing business” in its borders. What then could have helped the multinational companies make more informed decisions on whether or not to do business in Africa–as it is, not as they want it to be–and then how to conduct said business: intelligence.
The second: In May 2024, I also wrote another popular piece, “Rethinking global rankings: Moving beyond one size fits all metrics.” The piece describes how most global rankings that measure indicators such as human development, corruption, infrastructure, prosperity, and so on can be summarized as: rich (and often Western) countries at the top of the list and poor (and often African or warring countries) at the bottom. Observe any list over the past few decades, and you’ll find this disparity. A prominent political scientist, Yuen Yuen Ang, cited my piece in her article for The Ideas Letter, describing how mainstream scholars often rank certain countries as “good” and others as less good. It begs the question: What is the functional purpose of these rankings, and how can ranking organizations improve how they gather, analyze, and present data? The answers will come by applying intelligence.
The third: Development progress has ground to a halt. Over the past 35 years, the percentage of people living in extreme poverty globally has plummeted from more than 30% to just under 10%. Progress, however, has stalled. As this Economist article put it, “The world’s poorest countries have experienced a brutal decade.” Honest observers will be able to assess that most of the progress in fighting poverty over the past few decades has come from China, India, Vietnam, and a few other countries. In Africa, more people are living in poverty today than there were a decade ago. Also, the GDP per capita of the continent (a measure of productivity and output per person) hasn’t budged since 1990. For future progress to happen, development organization leaders must think differently. They must apply more intelligence to their work.
It’s easy to see how we’ve gotten here. The team at Unlock Aid–where I serve as an advisor–has done incredible work helping us see that most of the foreign aid dollars actually never leave the host country. In addition, in 2022, USAID contractors kept 82 cents of every dollar for themselves. It turns out that much of what we call foreign aid isn’t actually foreign, and this reality may have something to do with stalled progress.
As development aid resources become more scarce and countries look to solve the myriad of problems within their borders, leaders in global development will be forced to ask better questions that can help them more efficiently use scarce resources; questions such as: How long should this take? Where else has this program been implemented, and was it successful? How much should this cost? Why do we believe this will work? These are relatively simple questions anchored in the reality of how the world works. By asking questions such as these, leaders in global development can infuse more intelligence into their work.
