Volume 1, Issue 1 · November 2025

Twenty-Eight Investigations Across Three Continents

From tax revolts and FX experiments to water stress, climate migration and the next wave of South–South trade. The Meridian's inaugural issue maps the real economic forces reshaping Africa, Asia and Latin America — with named authors, verifiable data and a commitment to publish methods, sources and corrections.

Cover Story & Lead Analysis

Cover Story · Southern Africa

Water Stress in Southern Africa: The New Geography of Urban Thirst

Dams, droughts and debt: how water scarcity collides with power, mining and food imports across a thirsty region.

Fiscal Policy · Kenya

Kenya's Tax Revolt: Ruto's IMF Fiscal Gamble

A Finance Bill withdrawn after deadly protests: what it means for debt, taxes and trust in East Africa's anchor economy.

Currency · Nigeria

Nigeria's FX Experiment: Can the Naira's Managed Float Deliver Stability?

After rate unification and sharp depreciation, can policymakers rebuild credibility before politics erodes the new regime?

EDITION HIGHLIGHTS

Cover Story · Water Stress in Southern Africa Kenya's Tax Revolt: Ruto's IMF Fiscal Gamble Nigeria's FX Experiment: Managed Float Under Pressure South–South Trade 2.0: New Corridors in Food, Fuel and Goods The Food Inflation Wave: A Hidden FX Tax on Every Meal Cover Story · Water Stress in Southern Africa Kenya's Tax Revolt: Ruto's IMF Fiscal Gamble Nigeria's FX Experiment: Managed Float Under Pressure South–South Trade 2.0: New Corridors in Food, Fuel and Goods The Food Inflation Wave: A Hidden FX Tax on Every Meal

Editor's Preface

Letter from the Editor

Why this magazine exists: named authors, verifiable data and a commitment to publish methods, sources and corrections for Global South analysis.

Read the full letter →

Africa

Fiscal Policy · Kenya

Kenya's Tax Revolt: Ruto's IMF Fiscal Gamble

When fiscal consolidation meets a young, connected electorate willing to push back in the streets.

Currency · Nigeria

Nigeria's FX Experiment

A managed float, shrinking parallel premium and the political cost of allowing prices to reset.

Addis Ababa skyline and construction cranes

Post-Conflict · Ethiopia

Ethiopia's Peace Dividend Gamble

Ambitious reconstruction plans meet investor caution and unresolved political risk.

Security Blocs · Sahel

The Sahel's New Bloc

As Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso reconfigure alliances, a different regional order starts to take shape.

Power lines and coal plant in South Africa

Energy Transition · South Africa

South Africa's Energy Transition

Blackouts, bailouts and the politics of opening the grid to independent power producers.

Port Louis skyline and financial district

Finance Hub · Mauritius

Mauritius as a Financial Hub

Can a small island keep its role in global capital flows under tighter transparency and tax rules?

Climate & Cities · Africa

Climate Migration Inside Africa

Lagos, Nairobi and Kinshasa absorb internal migrants long before any reach European shores.

Technology · Africa

Africa's AI Moment

Data, talent and compute — and the battle to avoid a second wave of digital colonialism.

Dams and dry landscape in Southern Africa

Cover Story · Southern Africa

Water Stress in Southern Africa

The new geography of urban thirst — and its implications for power, mining and migration.

Asia

Industry · India

India's Manufacturing Push: Is the PLI Model Delivering?

Incentives, supply chains and the reality behind the headlines of 'China plus one'.

Resources · Indonesia

Indonesia's Nickel Reckoning

Export bans, EV ambitions and the environmental cost of being indispensable to the green transition.

Climate & Labour · Asia

Asia's Heat Belt

Karachi, Dhaka and Manila move into a climate zone where work hours and health budgets collide.

Human Capital · South Asia

South Asia's Education Crunch

High enrolment but low learning outcomes — and a generation still carrying the scars of lost school time.

Debt & Politics · Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka's Debt Democracy

What happens when IMF timelines meet electoral cycles and reform fatigue.

IMF & Reform · Bangladesh

Bangladesh After the IMF Review

A larger programme, energy tariff reforms and the politics of keeping reserves stable.

Latin America

Trade & Wages · Americas

Cheap Food, Expensive Lives

The wage and trade architecture that keeps food cheap in the North and labour precarious in the South.

Shock Therapy · Argentina

Argentina After Milei

Dollarisation-lite, subsidy cuts and the social limits of radical economic experiments.

Lithium · Chile

Chile's Lithium Social Contract

Can a new model share resource wealth, fund the transition and still keep investors at the table?

Drugs & Policy · Colombia

Colombia's New Drug Policy

Petro's public-health experiment meets the entrenched economics of the cocaine trade.

Climate · Amazon Basin

Amazon Basin Tipping Point

What happens to local economies if the forest crosses a point of no return?

Fiscal Rules · Brazil

Brazil's Fiscal Anchor Fight

Markets, social spending and the search for a credible budget rule in a low-growth world.

Nearshoring · Mexico

Mexico's Nearshoring Reality Check

Are supply chains genuinely relocating, or are old flows being rebadged as 'nearshoring'?

Cross-Regional & Indian Ocean

Finance · Gulf

The Gulf's Quiet Power Shift

How Saudi Arabia and the UAE are rewriting bailout politics and development finance across the Global South.

Geopolitics · BRICS

BRICS 2025 in Rio

Beyond photo-ops: what an alternative financial architecture could realistically look like.

Trade · South–South

South–South Trade 2.0

Food, fuel and manufacturing corridors linking developing economies to each other rather than to the North.

Islands · Indian Ocean

Maldives, Mauritius, Seychelles: The Archipelago Climate Wars

Tourism, sea-level rise and great-power competition across three vulnerable island states.

Food & FX · Global South

The Food Inflation Wave

Why the Global South is paying more for calories than ever — and how weak currencies act as a hidden tax.

Labour · Global South

Youth Unemployment Crisis

A broken ladder for a generation across Africa, Latin America and Asia — degrees, debt and disappearing formal jobs.

This Month in Data

Global South snapshot

A concise view of macro indicators and political signals shaping this edition's 28 investigations. Figures are rounded and indicative; individual country pieces provide full context and sourcing.

Key indicators

Asia–Pacific real GDP +4.5%

Still the largest single contributor to global growth among emerging regions.

Low-income debt distress ≈ 55%

A majority of low-income countries are rated at, or near, high risk of debt distress.

Food price pressure Elevated

Import costs and weaker currencies keep staple food inflation above headline CPI in many markets.

Youth unemployment 15–30%

Double-digit youth joblessness across several African, Asian and Latin American economies.

Update values as new IMF, World Bank or national data are released.

Signals behind the numbers

Kenya · Fiscal

Nationwide protests against new taxes force withdrawal of a flagship Finance Bill and reopen the question of how far IMF-backed consolidation can go.

Nigeria · FX

A managed float narrows the naira's parallel-market gap, but credibility depends on tariff reforms, fuel pricing and consistent market interventions.

Sahel · Geopolitics

A new Sahel bloc seeks autonomy from legacy regional bodies, reshaping security co-operation and access to development finance.

Asia · Heat & work

Rising wet-bulb temperatures across South and Southeast Asia begin to alter working hours, health budgets and intra-regional migration.

Food · Imports

Higher shipping costs, conflict-driven rerouting and currency depreciation raise the local-currency cost of calories across multiple net-importing economies.

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