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  • Monthly Review Essays

About Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Jomo Kwame Sundaram is Visiting Senior Fellow at Khazanah Research Institute, Visiting Fellow at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, Columbia University, and Adjunct Professor at the International Islamic University in Malaysia.
  • Data centres, the backbone of artificial intelligence, consume enormous amounts of water and energy—placing new pressures on local communities and ecosystems. Photo by Christopher Bowns/Flickr.

    Data centre investments bad deals

    Originally published: JOMO on October 28, 2025 (more by JOMO)  |

    Opposition to data centres has been rapidly spreading internationally due to their fast-growing resource demands. DCs have been proliferating, driven by the popularity of artificial intelligence.

  • The art in this newsletter was produced by Tricontinental’s art department for our May dossier, Africa’s Faustian Bargain with the International Monetary Fund.

    No African Development from Western Trade Policies

    Originally published: JOMO on October 7, 2025 by K Kuhaneetha Bai (more by JOMO)  |

    The World Bank’s 1981 Berg Report provided the blueprint for structural adjustment, including economic liberalisation in Africa. Urging trade liberalisation, it promised growth from agriculture.

  • Sign: “Banks are not innocent in our misery”

    Beware Independent Central Banks

    Originally published: JOMO on September 23, 2025 (more by JOMO)  |

    President Trump’s snide barbs against his appointee, Fed Chair Jerome Powell, have revived support for central bank independence–long used by powerful financial interests against growth and equity.

  • Earth burning. (Photo: climatechange20.commons.gc.cuny.edu)

    North worsens tropical catastrophe

    Originally published: JOMO on September 8, 2025 (more by JOMO)  |

    Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have risen over the last two centuries, with current and accumulated emissions per capita from rich nations greatly exceeding those of the Global South.

  • CLIMA SUPERCOMPUTADO

    Inequality worsens Planetary heating

    Originally published: JOMO on August 12, 2025 (more by JOMO)  |

    The accumulation of still growing greenhouse gas emissions in an increasingly unequal world is accelerating planetary heating. This is worsening inequalities, both nationally and internationally.

  • 100 g gold bar, Money, Gold Bars, Shop, gold is money, gold shop, gold, business, finance, golden (Photo: Pxfuel)

    Another Nobel for Anglocentric Neoliberal Institutional Economics

    Originally published: Challenging Development+ on October 22, 2024 (more by Challenging Development+)

    New institutional economics has received another so-called Nobel prize, ostensibly for again claiming that good institutions and democratic governance ensure growth, development, equity & democracy.

  • Rich get richer and poor get poorer

    More poverty for the poor

    Originally published: Challenging Development+ on July 24, 2024 (more by Challenging Development+)

    Many low-income countries (LICs) continue to slip further behind the rest of the world. Meanwhile, people in extreme poverty have been increasing again after decades of decline.

  • Royalty free if the debt photos free download (Photo: picsels)

    Government debt is symptom, not cause

    Originally published: Challenging Development+ on June 20, 2024 by Ndongo Samba Sylla (more by Challenging Development+)

    Developing country governments are being blamed for irresponsibly borrowing too much. The resulting debt stress has blocked investments and growth in this unequal and unfair world economic order.

  • Europe – Fastest Warming Continent In World Since 1980s, Says WMO

    Rich nation hypocrisy accelerating global heating

    Originally published: Inter Press Service on April 24, 2024 (more by Inter Press Service)  |

    Addressing climate change requires a comprehensive, equitable, and pragmatic approach that prioritizes substantial emissions reductions and supports vulnerable populations most affected by global heating.

  • Global goal to end poverty by 2030 unlikely – World Bank — Newsverge NewsvergeGlobal goal to end poverty by 2030 unlikely – World Bank — Newsverge Newsverge

    World Bank enables private capture of profits, public resources

    Originally published: Challenging Development+ on December 20, 2023 (more by Challenging Development+)

    The World Bank insists private finance is needed for economic recovery and the Sustainable Development Goals but does little to ensure profit-hungry commercial finance serves the public interest.

  • IPEF regime

    IPEF: New Cold War weapon backfires

    Originally published: Challenging Development+ on November 15, 2023 by Ong Kar Jin (more by Challenging Development+)

    U.S. President Joe Biden’s Indo-Pacific Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) is the economic arm of his administration’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, aimed at countering China’s influence in the region.

  • The World Bank (Image Courtesy: Anadolu Agency)

    Debt-pushing as financial inclusion

    Originally published: IPS News on October 4, 2023 (more by IPS News)  |

    Ajay Banga was anointed World Bank president for promoting financial inclusion. Thanks to its success and interest rate hikes, more poor people are drowning in debt as consumer prices rise.

  • World Bank out of Climate Finance

    World Bank climate finance plan little help, unfair

    Originally published: Challenging Development+ on August 16, 2023 by Khoo Wei Yang (more by Challenging Development+)

    The World Bank plans to use public funds to subsidize private finance, ostensibly to mobilize much more capital to address the climate crisis. But the new plan is not the solution it purports to be.

  • Back to the future? Health and the World Bank's human capital index. (Photo: The BMJ)

    Government health financing for all, not insurance

    Originally published: Challenging Development+ on August 2, 2023 by Nazihah Noor (more by Challenging Development+)

    To achieve universal health coverage, all people need access to public healthcare. This should be an entitlement for all, regardless of means, requiring adequate long term sustainable financing.

  • The Quest for Economic and Monetary Sovereignty in 21st Century Africa

    Open veins of Africa bleeding heavily

    Originally published: Inter Press Service on November 22, 2022 by Ndongo Samba Sylla (more by Inter Press Service)  |

    The ongoing plunder of Africa’s natural resources drained by capital flight is holding it back yet again. More African nations face protracted recessions amid mounting debt distress, rubbing salt into deep wounds from the past.

  • Planet C This photo of Earth was taken a few frames after the famous Apollo 17 "Blue Marble" image but is my favorite in the sequence shot by Harrison Schmitt

    Rich nations doubly responsible for greenhouse gas emissions

    Originally published: JOMO on December 6, 2022 by Hezri A. Adnan (more by JOMO)  |

    Natural flows do not respect national boundaries. The atmosphere and oceans cross international borders with little difficulty, as greenhouse gases (GHGs) and other fluids, including pollutants, easily traverse frontiers.

  • A general view of the opening meeting of the UN Conference at the Folkets Hus in Stockholm

    Limits to growth: Inconvenient truth of our times

    Originally published: JOMO on November 7, 2022 by Hezri A. Adnan (more by JOMO)  |

    Ahead of the first United Nations environmental summit in Stockholm in 1972, a group of scientists prepared The Limits to Growth report for the Club of Rome. It showed planet Earth’s finite natural resources cannot support ever-growing human consumption.

  • Can Universal Basic Income End Poverty in Developing Countries?

    Developing countries need monetary financing

    Originally published: JOMO on November 1, 2022 (more by JOMO)  |

    Developing countries have long been told to avoid borrowing from central banks (CBs) to finance government spending. Many have even legislated against CB financing of fiscal expenditure.

  • Federal Reserve System Headquarters, Washington, DC

    Stop worshiping central banks

    Originally published: JOMO on October 17, 2022 (more by JOMO)  |

    Preoccupied with enhancing their own ‘credibility’ and reputations, central banks (CBs) are again driving the world economy into recession, financial turmoil and debt crises.

  • The S&P 500 has fallen by a fifth since the start of the year / Image: Public Domain

    Central bank myths drag down world economy

    Originally published: JOMO on October 8, 2022 (more by JOMO)  |

    The dogmatic obsession with and focus on fighting inflation in rich countries are pushing the world economy into recession, with many dire consequences, especially for poorer countries. This phobia is due to myths shared by most central bankers.

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Monthly Review Essays

  • Nikolai Gogol’s Department of Government Efficiency
    Andy Merrifield A 1926 Soviet illustration of a production of Gogol's play The Government Inspector, showing audience members in the foreground, and actors on stage in the background.

    Almost two centuries after its opening night, Gogol’s five-act satirical play The Government Inspector continues to create a stir with every performance, seemingly no matter where. Maybe because corruption and self-serving double-talk aren’t just familiar features of 19th-century Russia, but have become ingrained facets of all systems of government and officialdom, making them recognizable to […]

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  • Red Lake Chief makes a speech to the governor of Red River at Fort Douglas in 1825. Fort Douglas was the first fort associated with the Hudson’s Bay Company near the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers in today’s city of Winnipeg. Painting by Peter Rindisbacher. Image courtesy Library and Archives Canada.
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