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Rand Issues Commentary to The Hill: Ukraine's Winning Strategy Against Russia - Attrition
SANTA MONICA, California, July 23 -- Rand issued the following commentary on July 22, 2026, by adjunct military historian Gian Gentile, and Andrew Radin, senior political scientist and associate director of the Master of National Security Policy Program at the Pardee Rand Graduate School, to The Hill:
* * *
Ukraine's Winning Strategy Against Russia: Attrition
Ukraine is winning the war against Russia through a strategy of attrition.
That statement may come as a surprise. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 the assumption has been that attrition warfare in the conflict would undoubtedly ... Show Full Article SANTA MONICA, California, July 23 -- Rand issued the following commentary on July 22, 2026, by adjunct military historian Gian Gentile, and Andrew Radin, senior political scientist and associate director of the Master of National Security Policy Program at the Pardee Rand Graduate School, to The Hill: * * * Ukraine's Winning Strategy Against Russia: Attrition Ukraine is winning the war against Russia through a strategy of attrition. That statement may come as a surprise. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 the assumption has been that attrition warfare in the conflict would undoubtedlyfavor Russia. Russia has a population three times as great, and President Vladimir Putin--and Russian society more widely--have demonstrated a tolerance for huge personnel losses to seize limited amounts of territory in Ukraine.
But recent reporting and analyses suggest that the tide has turned in Ukraine's favor. Russia's war economy is going underwater. Ukraine continues to strike industrial targets deep inside Russia with its long-range drones. The recent Russian declaration of emergency in Crimea due to Ukrainian strikes against logistics supply lines shows the increasingly precarious position Russia is now in. Importantly, there are very real signs of unrest within parts of the population and the Russian oligarchy.
On the battlefield, "attrition" has become a dirty word in warfighting today. Modern militaries aim to destroy the adversary's military forces, creating leverage for a favorable political outcome. The German Army's speedy victory against France in 1940, when it outmaneuvered French defensive formations and seized Paris and political control of half of France, is an example. Similarly, in several Napoleonic battles, the elimination of the adversary army forced a political settlement favorable to France.
But annihilating the adversary's military forces doesn't always lead to a positive political outcome. In the American invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003, the U.S. military destroyed the Iraqi Army on the ground--and what was left simply melted away. That didn't prevent the U.S. military from getting mired in Iraq (https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/combat-studies-institute/csi-books/OnPointII.pdf) for the next eight years fighting a nasty, multi-faceted insurgency.
Most wars in history, though, have been won by attrition--that is, exhausting the opponent through sustained loss of manpower and material on the battlefield. In the American Civil War, Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant realized that a strategy he had been taught to pursue as a student at West Point--ending a war by destroying the enemy army in a single decisive battle--was a pipe dream. Instead, Grant adopted a strategy of attrition, using military action to grind the Confederate Army down to the point where it was forced to surrender in April 1865.
In the current Russia-Ukraine War, Ukraine's smaller population and democratic government have been considered weaknesses by many analysts. They have argued that Russia's size makes Ukrainian victory a remote possibility at best. Some have maintained that, to win, Ukraine must conduct offensive operations to seize key terrain and force Russia to come to terms.
Over the last two years, however, Ukraine has developed an effective, if not necessarily novel, strategy of attrition: kill more Russian soldiers, faster. Ukraine leaders use business principles to maximize both Russian casualties and economic costs. The key performance metrics in former Minister of Defense Mykhailo Fedorov's war plan for Ukraine has been to make Russia suffer 200 killed for each square kilometer of territory seized and eliminate at least 50,000 Russian soldiers each month.
Ukraine's defense sector is making these goals attainable, including its domestic drone industry, its internally developed command-and-control systems and its training and organization of drone forces--in particular the specialization of the Unmanned Systems Forces. Fedorov's mathematics of war initiative also collected data to improve the efficiency of attrition. The ePoints system, for example, incentivized units to submit video evidence of their kills to receive points they can use to buy additional drones.
Ukraine's attrition strategy also extends deep into Russia's interior, where it continues to strike oil and gas infrastructure. Such attacks provide propaganda value--as demonstrated by a recent hit near St. Petersburg, where Putin was hosting an economic conference in early June. More crucially, such attacks reduce oil exports, weakening the capacity of the Russian economy to fund the war.
The question is whether this can force Putin's regime to accept defeat. During the Tet Offensive in February 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War, about 350 U.S. service members were killed in action during one week of combat. The Russian Army is currently suffering over 300 soldiers killed in action every day and yet sees little effective domestic opposition.
But Ukraine could very well break Russia's will to continue fighting. History offers an example of that, too. In 1918, the allied armies of France, Great Britain and the recently arrived Americans had defeated the German Spring Offensive on the Western Front. After four years of bloody attritional warfare, the German Army collapsed on the field of battle, leading to the November armistice and peace treaty that ended World War I.
Whether the Russian Army faces a similar fate will depend on Ukraine's maintenance of its effective strategy of attrition and continuing if not increasing its long-range strikes into Russia, and the continued support of its partner nations.
* * *
More About This Commentary
Gian Gentile, an adjunct military historian at RAND, is a retired U.S. Army colonel with 32 years of active service who previously served as director of the Military History Program at the United States Military Academy at West Point.
Andrew Radin is a senior political scientist at RAND and associate director of the Master of National Security Policy program at the Pardee RAND Graduate School.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2026/07/ukraines-winning-strategy-against-russia-attrition.html
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
Ukraine's Winning Strategy Against Russia: Attrition
Ukraine is winning the war against Russia through a strategy of attrition.
That statement may come as a surprise. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 the assumption has been that attrition warfare in the conflict would undoubtedly ... Show Full Article SANTA MONICA, California, July 23 -- Rand issued the following commentary on July 22, 2026, by adjunct military historian Gian Gentile, and Andrew Radin, senior political scientist and associate director of the Master of National Security Policy Program at the Pardee Rand Graduate School, to The Hill: * * * Ukraine's Winning Strategy Against Russia: Attrition Ukraine is winning the war against Russia through a strategy of attrition. That statement may come as a surprise. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 the assumption has been that attrition warfare in the conflict would undoubtedlyfavor Russia. Russia has a population three times as great, and President Vladimir Putin--and Russian society more widely--have demonstrated a tolerance for huge personnel losses to seize limited amounts of territory in Ukraine.
But recent reporting and analyses suggest that the tide has turned in Ukraine's favor. Russia's war economy is going underwater. Ukraine continues to strike industrial targets deep inside Russia with its long-range drones. The recent Russian declaration of emergency in Crimea due to Ukrainian strikes against logistics supply lines shows the increasingly precarious position Russia is now in. Importantly, there are very real signs of unrest within parts of the population and the Russian oligarchy.
On the battlefield, "attrition" has become a dirty word in warfighting today. Modern militaries aim to destroy the adversary's military forces, creating leverage for a favorable political outcome. The German Army's speedy victory against France in 1940, when it outmaneuvered French defensive formations and seized Paris and political control of half of France, is an example. Similarly, in several Napoleonic battles, the elimination of the adversary army forced a political settlement favorable to France.
But annihilating the adversary's military forces doesn't always lead to a positive political outcome. In the American invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003, the U.S. military destroyed the Iraqi Army on the ground--and what was left simply melted away. That didn't prevent the U.S. military from getting mired in Iraq (https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/combat-studies-institute/csi-books/OnPointII.pdf) for the next eight years fighting a nasty, multi-faceted insurgency.
Most wars in history, though, have been won by attrition--that is, exhausting the opponent through sustained loss of manpower and material on the battlefield. In the American Civil War, Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant realized that a strategy he had been taught to pursue as a student at West Point--ending a war by destroying the enemy army in a single decisive battle--was a pipe dream. Instead, Grant adopted a strategy of attrition, using military action to grind the Confederate Army down to the point where it was forced to surrender in April 1865.
In the current Russia-Ukraine War, Ukraine's smaller population and democratic government have been considered weaknesses by many analysts. They have argued that Russia's size makes Ukrainian victory a remote possibility at best. Some have maintained that, to win, Ukraine must conduct offensive operations to seize key terrain and force Russia to come to terms.
Over the last two years, however, Ukraine has developed an effective, if not necessarily novel, strategy of attrition: kill more Russian soldiers, faster. Ukraine leaders use business principles to maximize both Russian casualties and economic costs. The key performance metrics in former Minister of Defense Mykhailo Fedorov's war plan for Ukraine has been to make Russia suffer 200 killed for each square kilometer of territory seized and eliminate at least 50,000 Russian soldiers each month.
Ukraine's defense sector is making these goals attainable, including its domestic drone industry, its internally developed command-and-control systems and its training and organization of drone forces--in particular the specialization of the Unmanned Systems Forces. Fedorov's mathematics of war initiative also collected data to improve the efficiency of attrition. The ePoints system, for example, incentivized units to submit video evidence of their kills to receive points they can use to buy additional drones.
Ukraine's attrition strategy also extends deep into Russia's interior, where it continues to strike oil and gas infrastructure. Such attacks provide propaganda value--as demonstrated by a recent hit near St. Petersburg, where Putin was hosting an economic conference in early June. More crucially, such attacks reduce oil exports, weakening the capacity of the Russian economy to fund the war.
The question is whether this can force Putin's regime to accept defeat. During the Tet Offensive in February 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War, about 350 U.S. service members were killed in action during one week of combat. The Russian Army is currently suffering over 300 soldiers killed in action every day and yet sees little effective domestic opposition.
But Ukraine could very well break Russia's will to continue fighting. History offers an example of that, too. In 1918, the allied armies of France, Great Britain and the recently arrived Americans had defeated the German Spring Offensive on the Western Front. After four years of bloody attritional warfare, the German Army collapsed on the field of battle, leading to the November armistice and peace treaty that ended World War I.
Whether the Russian Army faces a similar fate will depend on Ukraine's maintenance of its effective strategy of attrition and continuing if not increasing its long-range strikes into Russia, and the continued support of its partner nations.
* * *
More About This Commentary
Gian Gentile, an adjunct military historian at RAND, is a retired U.S. Army colonel with 32 years of active service who previously served as director of the Military History Program at the United States Military Academy at West Point.
Andrew Radin is a senior political scientist at RAND and associate director of the Master of National Security Policy program at the Pardee RAND Graduate School.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2026/07/ukraines-winning-strategy-against-russia-attrition.html
[Category: ThinkTank]
Manhattan Institute Issues Commentary to Wall Street Journal: British Psychiatrist Debunks an American Racial Myth
NEW YORK, July 23 -- The Manhattan Institute issued the following excerpts of a commentary on July 21, 2026, by senior fellow Jason L. Riley to the Wall Street Journal:
* * *
A British Psychiatrist Debunks an American Racial Myth
Theodore Dalrymple's account of England's white underclass will sound familiar to Americans.
-
The idea that today's racial disparities stem primarily from America's history of slavery and segregation deserves far more scrutiny than it typically receives in discussions about black upward mobility.
It's a narrative advanced by politicians and activists to secure votes ... Show Full Article NEW YORK, July 23 -- The Manhattan Institute issued the following excerpts of a commentary on July 21, 2026, by senior fellow Jason L. Riley to the Wall Street Journal: * * * A British Psychiatrist Debunks an American Racial Myth Theodore Dalrymple's account of England's white underclass will sound familiar to Americans. - The idea that today's racial disparities stem primarily from America's history of slavery and segregation deserves far more scrutiny than it typically receives in discussions about black upward mobility. It's a narrative advanced by politicians and activists to secure votesand financial support, but facts and logic point in a different direction.
Racism has been the constant in black American history, yet black progress has fluctuated, and better race relations haven't necessarily coincided with faster social and economic advancement. One hundred years after the end of slavery, black nuclear families were the norm, and most black children were raised in a home with a mother and father present. Today, neither is true.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the Wall Street Journal (https://www.wsj.com/opinion/a-british-psychiatrist-debunks-an-american-racial-myth-df57a7b2)
* * *
Jason L. Riley is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, and a Fox News commentator.
* * *
Original text here: https://manhattan.institute/article/a-british-psychiatrist-debunks-an-american-racial-myth
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
A British Psychiatrist Debunks an American Racial Myth
Theodore Dalrymple's account of England's white underclass will sound familiar to Americans.
-
The idea that today's racial disparities stem primarily from America's history of slavery and segregation deserves far more scrutiny than it typically receives in discussions about black upward mobility.
It's a narrative advanced by politicians and activists to secure votes ... Show Full Article NEW YORK, July 23 -- The Manhattan Institute issued the following excerpts of a commentary on July 21, 2026, by senior fellow Jason L. Riley to the Wall Street Journal: * * * A British Psychiatrist Debunks an American Racial Myth Theodore Dalrymple's account of England's white underclass will sound familiar to Americans. - The idea that today's racial disparities stem primarily from America's history of slavery and segregation deserves far more scrutiny than it typically receives in discussions about black upward mobility. It's a narrative advanced by politicians and activists to secure votesand financial support, but facts and logic point in a different direction.
Racism has been the constant in black American history, yet black progress has fluctuated, and better race relations haven't necessarily coincided with faster social and economic advancement. One hundred years after the end of slavery, black nuclear families were the norm, and most black children were raised in a home with a mother and father present. Today, neither is true.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the Wall Street Journal (https://www.wsj.com/opinion/a-british-psychiatrist-debunks-an-american-racial-myth-df57a7b2)
* * *
Jason L. Riley is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, and a Fox News commentator.
* * *
Original text here: https://manhattan.institute/article/a-british-psychiatrist-debunks-an-american-racial-myth
[Category: ThinkTank]
Hudson Institute Issues Commentary to Providence Journal: Nolan's 'Odyssey' Is a Defense of Western Civilization
WASHINGTON, July 23 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on July 21, 2026, by adjunct fellow Garrett Exner to Providence Journal:
* * *
Nolan's "Odyssey" Is a Defense of Western Civilization
For months, speculation surrounding Christopher Nolan's adaptation of The Odyssey has been inescapable. In conservative circles--a demographic instinctively protective of Western literature's foundational texts--anxiety was high going into this weekend's release. While this version is a modern ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 23 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on July 21, 2026, by adjunct fellow Garrett Exner to Providence Journal: * * * Nolan's "Odyssey" Is a Defense of Western Civilization For months, speculation surrounding Christopher Nolan's adaptation of The Odyssey has been inescapable. In conservative circles--a demographic instinctively protective of Western literature's foundational texts--anxiety was high going into this weekend's release. While this version is a moderntake on Homer and does not seek strict historical accuracy, the movie succeeds at its main goal: highlighting the preeminence and precariousness of the Western tradition, something conservatives should celebrate.
Nolan took part of the Western canon and created a story that warns about the end of a civilization. He incorporated Western concepts of virtue, Christian themes, and set them all against a backdrop meant to inspire all the descendants of European civilization.
Nolan strays from historical accuracy in armor and attire as well as geography. But he makes these choices because he never sought to make a film straightforwardly depicting Odysseus's Late Bronze Age journey around the Mediterranean. To critique stylistic choices is to miss what Nolan really seeks to depict: the West.
Throughout the film, Odysseus and his men land in places that resemble Northern Europe more than North Africa or the Mediterranean. The land of the Laestrygonians, for example, is clearly a European forest in winter. In fact, much of the film was shot in Great Britain, Italy, and Greece, a subtle through line connecting three nations at the heart of the West.
Nolan is a master of both epic visuals and evocative sound designs, a skill set he uses to drop Western "Easter eggs" throughout the film. As Odysseus escapes the cyclops, every detail of the cave and the wild yell of the monster aim to elicit discomfort in the viewer. As Poseidon's son devours several men, it is a clear nod to Spanish painter Fransisco Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son (1823), another take on Greek mythology. Goya is one of the most influential painters in Western art and is often referred to as one of the last of the "Old Masters" before the arrival of modern art towards the end of the nineteenth century.
Nolan highlights these connections against the theme of civilizational collapse to call attention to the decline of Western civilization. It is the film's most prominent theme. Penelope declares as much in one of the final monologues stating that if the Greeks fail to honor the law of the gods, civilization will fall. For modern Christians, the sentiment also rings true: we deny God's will in Scripture and natural law at our own peril.
Penelope's statement comes as she realizes Odysseus and his men are the "People of the Sea" she has feared for years. Odysseus allowed himself to become corrupt and violent--denying the gods (God)--pillaging and looting not only in Troy, but also along his route home.
In the Homeric epic, Odysseus is not troubled by the sack of Troy. He understands it as a glorious victory. Yet Nolan chooses to show the sack of Troy as a descent into violence and hate, culminating in the desecration of Athena's temple and even the beheading of Athena herself. Instead of being proud of sacking Troy, these acts inspire severe post-traumatic stress and moral injury in Odysseus. This is not a bastardization of The Odyssey, but a thoughtful update in light of the Christian morality that has come to define the West.
Through the film Nolan clarifies this through the use of Christian themes, particularly in concepts of sacrifice. In Nolan's version, one father is unwilling to sacrifice his son's life, while a King offers himself as a sacrifice for his people. The same King comes back to his kingdom disguised in the poorest form, a beggar.
Nolan also reminds viewers that the wages of sin is death. He graphically depicts a number of deadly sins--lust, gluttony, sloth, wrath and pride--and does so with a unique command of cinematography. Just as in the Cyclops' cave, the scene with the witch Circe provokes visceral discomfort. The gluttony of the men is insatiable as they eat a soup of tripe while being molded, one by one, into swine.
The Odyssey is beautifully represented, expertly directed, and well-acted, with perhaps one exception: the character of Sinon. Yet, even in Sinon, Nolan winks at his conservative fans. The young boy in the story is not a man and Sinon should not be in the war with Troy. He is only there because an elitist coward lied in an attempt to appear noble. The man who forced Sinon's participation in the war, Antinous, also happens to be the villain seeking to take power in the kingdom of Ithaca.
Overall, Nolan's film is a call to defend the West, to maintain virtue, and to honor God. There are many forces competing for our attention and affection, some that distract us, some that corrupt us, and some that pull us into violence and anger, even as we are called to seek first the kingdom of God. If we can only remember our traditions and be guided by the wisdom of our past, we may finally make it home. And when we return to God, it will not be as conquering heroes, but as a beggars. We are called to come home as one in desperate need of mercy and forgiveness much more than praise and adoration.
Western civilization needs virtue now more than ever, and Nolan's film should remind us of that. We will become that which we hate if we turn our backs on God's Word and the traditions that made us great.
Read in Providence (https://providencemag.com/2026/07/nolans-odyssey-is-a-defense-of-western-civilization/).
* * *
At A Glance:
Garrett Exner is an adjunct fellow at Hudson Institute, where he writes and comments on US national defense with a specific focus on the use of special operations forces and gray zone competition.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.hudson.org/politics-government/nolans-odyssey-defense-western-civilization-garret-exner
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
Nolan's "Odyssey" Is a Defense of Western Civilization
For months, speculation surrounding Christopher Nolan's adaptation of The Odyssey has been inescapable. In conservative circles--a demographic instinctively protective of Western literature's foundational texts--anxiety was high going into this weekend's release. While this version is a modern ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 23 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on July 21, 2026, by adjunct fellow Garrett Exner to Providence Journal: * * * Nolan's "Odyssey" Is a Defense of Western Civilization For months, speculation surrounding Christopher Nolan's adaptation of The Odyssey has been inescapable. In conservative circles--a demographic instinctively protective of Western literature's foundational texts--anxiety was high going into this weekend's release. While this version is a moderntake on Homer and does not seek strict historical accuracy, the movie succeeds at its main goal: highlighting the preeminence and precariousness of the Western tradition, something conservatives should celebrate.
Nolan took part of the Western canon and created a story that warns about the end of a civilization. He incorporated Western concepts of virtue, Christian themes, and set them all against a backdrop meant to inspire all the descendants of European civilization.
Nolan strays from historical accuracy in armor and attire as well as geography. But he makes these choices because he never sought to make a film straightforwardly depicting Odysseus's Late Bronze Age journey around the Mediterranean. To critique stylistic choices is to miss what Nolan really seeks to depict: the West.
Throughout the film, Odysseus and his men land in places that resemble Northern Europe more than North Africa or the Mediterranean. The land of the Laestrygonians, for example, is clearly a European forest in winter. In fact, much of the film was shot in Great Britain, Italy, and Greece, a subtle through line connecting three nations at the heart of the West.
Nolan is a master of both epic visuals and evocative sound designs, a skill set he uses to drop Western "Easter eggs" throughout the film. As Odysseus escapes the cyclops, every detail of the cave and the wild yell of the monster aim to elicit discomfort in the viewer. As Poseidon's son devours several men, it is a clear nod to Spanish painter Fransisco Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son (1823), another take on Greek mythology. Goya is one of the most influential painters in Western art and is often referred to as one of the last of the "Old Masters" before the arrival of modern art towards the end of the nineteenth century.
Nolan highlights these connections against the theme of civilizational collapse to call attention to the decline of Western civilization. It is the film's most prominent theme. Penelope declares as much in one of the final monologues stating that if the Greeks fail to honor the law of the gods, civilization will fall. For modern Christians, the sentiment also rings true: we deny God's will in Scripture and natural law at our own peril.
Penelope's statement comes as she realizes Odysseus and his men are the "People of the Sea" she has feared for years. Odysseus allowed himself to become corrupt and violent--denying the gods (God)--pillaging and looting not only in Troy, but also along his route home.
In the Homeric epic, Odysseus is not troubled by the sack of Troy. He understands it as a glorious victory. Yet Nolan chooses to show the sack of Troy as a descent into violence and hate, culminating in the desecration of Athena's temple and even the beheading of Athena herself. Instead of being proud of sacking Troy, these acts inspire severe post-traumatic stress and moral injury in Odysseus. This is not a bastardization of The Odyssey, but a thoughtful update in light of the Christian morality that has come to define the West.
Through the film Nolan clarifies this through the use of Christian themes, particularly in concepts of sacrifice. In Nolan's version, one father is unwilling to sacrifice his son's life, while a King offers himself as a sacrifice for his people. The same King comes back to his kingdom disguised in the poorest form, a beggar.
Nolan also reminds viewers that the wages of sin is death. He graphically depicts a number of deadly sins--lust, gluttony, sloth, wrath and pride--and does so with a unique command of cinematography. Just as in the Cyclops' cave, the scene with the witch Circe provokes visceral discomfort. The gluttony of the men is insatiable as they eat a soup of tripe while being molded, one by one, into swine.
The Odyssey is beautifully represented, expertly directed, and well-acted, with perhaps one exception: the character of Sinon. Yet, even in Sinon, Nolan winks at his conservative fans. The young boy in the story is not a man and Sinon should not be in the war with Troy. He is only there because an elitist coward lied in an attempt to appear noble. The man who forced Sinon's participation in the war, Antinous, also happens to be the villain seeking to take power in the kingdom of Ithaca.
Overall, Nolan's film is a call to defend the West, to maintain virtue, and to honor God. There are many forces competing for our attention and affection, some that distract us, some that corrupt us, and some that pull us into violence and anger, even as we are called to seek first the kingdom of God. If we can only remember our traditions and be guided by the wisdom of our past, we may finally make it home. And when we return to God, it will not be as conquering heroes, but as a beggars. We are called to come home as one in desperate need of mercy and forgiveness much more than praise and adoration.
Western civilization needs virtue now more than ever, and Nolan's film should remind us of that. We will become that which we hate if we turn our backs on God's Word and the traditions that made us great.
Read in Providence (https://providencemag.com/2026/07/nolans-odyssey-is-a-defense-of-western-civilization/).
* * *
At A Glance:
Garrett Exner is an adjunct fellow at Hudson Institute, where he writes and comments on US national defense with a specific focus on the use of special operations forces and gray zone competition.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.hudson.org/politics-government/nolans-odyssey-defense-western-civilization-garret-exner
[Category: ThinkTank]
Heritage Launches Election Transparency Initiative Led by Ken Cuccinelli
WASHINGTON, July 23 -- The Heritage Foundation issued the following news release on July 22, 2026:
* * *
Heritage Launches Election Transparency Initiative Led by Ken Cuccinelli
The Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action today announced the launch of the Election Transparency Initiative, led by Ken Cuccinelli, which will be dedicated to advancing policy solutions that strengthen election integrity, promote transparency, and reinforce public confidence in America's elections.
Cuccinelli will continue to lead ETI within the Heritage enterprise, building on the Initiative's established work ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 23 -- The Heritage Foundation issued the following news release on July 22, 2026: * * * Heritage Launches Election Transparency Initiative Led by Ken Cuccinelli The Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action today announced the launch of the Election Transparency Initiative, led by Ken Cuccinelli, which will be dedicated to advancing policy solutions that strengthen election integrity, promote transparency, and reinforce public confidence in America's elections. Cuccinelli will continue to lead ETI within the Heritage enterprise, building on the Initiative's established workwith legislators, state officials, policy experts, and grassroots organizations.
Cuccinelli brings decades of experience in public service, constitutional law, and election policy. As chairman of ETI, he has been a leading national voice on election integrity issues, providing legislative testimony, legal analysis, and media commentary on election policy at both the state and federal levels.
Melody Himel Clarke will continue with the Election Transparency Initiative as an advisor, bringing extensive experience in election policy, grassroots advocacy, and organizational leadership. Clarke previously served as ETI's executive director and spent a decade with Heritage Action for America, advancing public policy initiatives and grassroots engagement across multiple states.
President of The Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action, Kevin Roberts said:
"The integrity of our elections is fundamental to the health of our constitutional republic. Today's announcement reflects Heritage's commitment to developing serious, principled solutions that help policymakers strengthen election administration and foster Americans' confidence in our democratic institutions. We look forward to working with Ken Cuccinelli on this critical effort."
As part of its mission, the Election Transparency Initiative will:
* Develop policy recommendations and model legislation for state and federal policymakers.
* Produce original research and legal analysis on election administration and election law.
* Convene policymakers, legal experts, and election professionals to share best practices and innovative solutions.
* Serve as a trusted resource for legislators, state officials, and the public on election integrity issues.
* Expand Heritage's leadership in advancing practical, constitutional approaches to election policy.
Election Transparency Initiative Chair, Ken Cuccinelli, commented:
"ETI is excited to join the Heritage family--lock, stock, and barrel. This is not the beginning of our work or of Heritage's; it is the next and stronger chapter. We will continue supporting state leaders and working alongside coalition partners across the country, now backed by the unmatched research, policy, legal, communications, and grassroots capabilities of Heritage." "Heritage has long been a leader in election integrity. Bringing ETI into that established work will make both efforts stronger and help us provide even greater support to those advancing transparent, secure, and accountable elections."
The Election Transparency Initiative will expand The Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action efforts to equip policymakers with research, legal analysis, and practical solutions to address emerging challenges in election administration.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.heritage.org/press/heritage-launches-election-transparency-initiative-led-ken-cuccinelli
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
Heritage Launches Election Transparency Initiative Led by Ken Cuccinelli
The Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action today announced the launch of the Election Transparency Initiative, led by Ken Cuccinelli, which will be dedicated to advancing policy solutions that strengthen election integrity, promote transparency, and reinforce public confidence in America's elections.
Cuccinelli will continue to lead ETI within the Heritage enterprise, building on the Initiative's established work ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 23 -- The Heritage Foundation issued the following news release on July 22, 2026: * * * Heritage Launches Election Transparency Initiative Led by Ken Cuccinelli The Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action today announced the launch of the Election Transparency Initiative, led by Ken Cuccinelli, which will be dedicated to advancing policy solutions that strengthen election integrity, promote transparency, and reinforce public confidence in America's elections. Cuccinelli will continue to lead ETI within the Heritage enterprise, building on the Initiative's established workwith legislators, state officials, policy experts, and grassroots organizations.
Cuccinelli brings decades of experience in public service, constitutional law, and election policy. As chairman of ETI, he has been a leading national voice on election integrity issues, providing legislative testimony, legal analysis, and media commentary on election policy at both the state and federal levels.
Melody Himel Clarke will continue with the Election Transparency Initiative as an advisor, bringing extensive experience in election policy, grassroots advocacy, and organizational leadership. Clarke previously served as ETI's executive director and spent a decade with Heritage Action for America, advancing public policy initiatives and grassroots engagement across multiple states.
President of The Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action, Kevin Roberts said:
"The integrity of our elections is fundamental to the health of our constitutional republic. Today's announcement reflects Heritage's commitment to developing serious, principled solutions that help policymakers strengthen election administration and foster Americans' confidence in our democratic institutions. We look forward to working with Ken Cuccinelli on this critical effort."
As part of its mission, the Election Transparency Initiative will:
* Develop policy recommendations and model legislation for state and federal policymakers.
* Produce original research and legal analysis on election administration and election law.
* Convene policymakers, legal experts, and election professionals to share best practices and innovative solutions.
* Serve as a trusted resource for legislators, state officials, and the public on election integrity issues.
* Expand Heritage's leadership in advancing practical, constitutional approaches to election policy.
Election Transparency Initiative Chair, Ken Cuccinelli, commented:
"ETI is excited to join the Heritage family--lock, stock, and barrel. This is not the beginning of our work or of Heritage's; it is the next and stronger chapter. We will continue supporting state leaders and working alongside coalition partners across the country, now backed by the unmatched research, policy, legal, communications, and grassroots capabilities of Heritage." "Heritage has long been a leader in election integrity. Bringing ETI into that established work will make both efforts stronger and help us provide even greater support to those advancing transparent, secure, and accountable elections."
The Election Transparency Initiative will expand The Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action efforts to equip policymakers with research, legal analysis, and practical solutions to address emerging challenges in election administration.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.heritage.org/press/heritage-launches-election-transparency-initiative-led-ken-cuccinelli
[Category: ThinkTank]
Empire Center Poll: New Yorkers Prioritize Low Energy Prices and Have Little Appetite for Radical Climate Policies
ALBANY, New York, July 23 -- Empire Center, a non-profit think tank, issued the following news release on July 22, 2026:
* * *
Empire Center Poll: New Yorkers Prioritize Low Energy Prices and Have Little Appetite for Radical Climate Policies
New Yorkers across political, geographic, age, and income groups oppose energy and climate policies that raise energy prices or force changes on homeowners, according to new Empire Center analysis of statewide polling data.
The findings show that New Yorkers' top priority is affordable energy. Just 24 percent of respondents prioritize reducing greenhouse ... Show Full Article ALBANY, New York, July 23 -- Empire Center, a non-profit think tank, issued the following news release on July 22, 2026: * * * Empire Center Poll: New Yorkers Prioritize Low Energy Prices and Have Little Appetite for Radical Climate Policies New Yorkers across political, geographic, age, and income groups oppose energy and climate policies that raise energy prices or force changes on homeowners, according to new Empire Center analysis of statewide polling data. The findings show that New Yorkers' top priority is affordable energy. Just 24 percent of respondents prioritize reducing greenhousegas emissions over lower energy prices, while a combined majority of 66 percent either prioritize lower prices outright or support emissions reductions only if they do not lead to increases in energy prices.
The opposition is especially clear on home-heating electrification. Statewide, 63 percent of respondents oppose home-heating electrification, compared with 30 percent who support it. Opposition exceeds support across most demographic groups.
Similarly, 60 percent oppose allowing individuals to sue oil companies for their contribution to climate change, while only 21 percent support such lawsuits.
"New Yorkers don't want climate policies that drive up energy prices," said Zilvinas Silenas, president of the Empire Center. "Yet since the 2019 Climate Act, Albany has let a small minority set energy policy while ignoring the majority who simply want affordable energy."
The results reinforce the Empire Center's 2025 finding that New Yorkers have little appetite for climate policies that increase energy prices.
While New Yorkers share concerns about data centers' impact on energy prices, only one-third support a blanket ban. The majority of respondents suggest data centers should build new power sources or make investments to prevent higher costs for households and other businesses.
"New Yorkers suggested a better policy solution--let data centers build their own power sources--than the temporary ban that came out of Albany," said Silenas. "Rather than banning data centers, Albany needs to remove restrictions on building more power plants. Data centers or no data centers, producing cheap power is the way to lower energy prices."
Data Source: Survey of Likely 2026 General Election Voters, July 6-8, 2026. Sample size 600, with margin of error +-4.00%, completed by Cygnal on behalf of the Empire Center for Public Policy.
* * *
About the Empire Center for Public Policy
The Empire Center is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank located in Albany, New York. Our mission is to make New York a better place to live and work by promoting public policy reforms grounded in free-market principles, personal responsibility, and the ideals of effective and accountable government.
* * *
About Cygnal
Cygnal is an award winning public opinion and predictive analytics firm. The firm delivered a 95 percent accuracy rating in the 2024 election cycle and has conducted more than 4,800 polls over 3,100 campaigns in all 50 states and more than 20 countries, helping governors, Members of Congress, state leaders, corporations, and trade associations turn voter data into decisions
* * *
Original text here: https://www.empirecenter.org/publications/empire-center-poll-new-yorkers-prioritize-low-energy-prices-and-have-little-appetite-for-radical-climate-policies/
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
Empire Center Poll: New Yorkers Prioritize Low Energy Prices and Have Little Appetite for Radical Climate Policies
New Yorkers across political, geographic, age, and income groups oppose energy and climate policies that raise energy prices or force changes on homeowners, according to new Empire Center analysis of statewide polling data.
The findings show that New Yorkers' top priority is affordable energy. Just 24 percent of respondents prioritize reducing greenhouse ... Show Full Article ALBANY, New York, July 23 -- Empire Center, a non-profit think tank, issued the following news release on July 22, 2026: * * * Empire Center Poll: New Yorkers Prioritize Low Energy Prices and Have Little Appetite for Radical Climate Policies New Yorkers across political, geographic, age, and income groups oppose energy and climate policies that raise energy prices or force changes on homeowners, according to new Empire Center analysis of statewide polling data. The findings show that New Yorkers' top priority is affordable energy. Just 24 percent of respondents prioritize reducing greenhousegas emissions over lower energy prices, while a combined majority of 66 percent either prioritize lower prices outright or support emissions reductions only if they do not lead to increases in energy prices.
The opposition is especially clear on home-heating electrification. Statewide, 63 percent of respondents oppose home-heating electrification, compared with 30 percent who support it. Opposition exceeds support across most demographic groups.
Similarly, 60 percent oppose allowing individuals to sue oil companies for their contribution to climate change, while only 21 percent support such lawsuits.
"New Yorkers don't want climate policies that drive up energy prices," said Zilvinas Silenas, president of the Empire Center. "Yet since the 2019 Climate Act, Albany has let a small minority set energy policy while ignoring the majority who simply want affordable energy."
The results reinforce the Empire Center's 2025 finding that New Yorkers have little appetite for climate policies that increase energy prices.
While New Yorkers share concerns about data centers' impact on energy prices, only one-third support a blanket ban. The majority of respondents suggest data centers should build new power sources or make investments to prevent higher costs for households and other businesses.
"New Yorkers suggested a better policy solution--let data centers build their own power sources--than the temporary ban that came out of Albany," said Silenas. "Rather than banning data centers, Albany needs to remove restrictions on building more power plants. Data centers or no data centers, producing cheap power is the way to lower energy prices."
Data Source: Survey of Likely 2026 General Election Voters, July 6-8, 2026. Sample size 600, with margin of error +-4.00%, completed by Cygnal on behalf of the Empire Center for Public Policy.
* * *
About the Empire Center for Public Policy
The Empire Center is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank located in Albany, New York. Our mission is to make New York a better place to live and work by promoting public policy reforms grounded in free-market principles, personal responsibility, and the ideals of effective and accountable government.
* * *
About Cygnal
Cygnal is an award winning public opinion and predictive analytics firm. The firm delivered a 95 percent accuracy rating in the 2024 election cycle and has conducted more than 4,800 polls over 3,100 campaigns in all 50 states and more than 20 countries, helping governors, Members of Congress, state leaders, corporations, and trade associations turn voter data into decisions
* * *
Original text here: https://www.empirecenter.org/publications/empire-center-poll-new-yorkers-prioritize-low-energy-prices-and-have-little-appetite-for-radical-climate-policies/
[Category: ThinkTank]
CSIS Issues Commentary: Tracking Global Compulsory Licensing Trends in Biopharmaceuticals
WASHINGTON, July 23 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary on July 22, 2026, by deputy director and fellow Alexander Kersten and program manager and research associate Shruti Sharma, both of the Renewing American Innovation:
* * *
Tracking Global Compulsory Licensing Trends in Biopharmaceuticals
Secure intellectual property (IP) rights provide a stable and predictable framework for actors in the innovation ecosystem. IP rights provide the legal assurances that allow actors to collaborate and appropriately value their innovation. And by granting ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 23 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary on July 22, 2026, by deputy director and fellow Alexander Kersten and program manager and research associate Shruti Sharma, both of the Renewing American Innovation: * * * Tracking Global Compulsory Licensing Trends in Biopharmaceuticals Secure intellectual property (IP) rights provide a stable and predictable framework for actors in the innovation ecosystem. IP rights provide the legal assurances that allow actors to collaborate and appropriately value their innovation. And by grantingtime-limited exclusivity, patents further encourage private investment in high-risk research. As such, patents are at the foundation of a nation's innovation system. The U.S. patent system has helped mobilize billions of dollars for research and development (R&D) and accelerated life-enhancing and lifesaving technological progress across multiple sectors, including the biopharmaceutical industry.
Yet patents must also balance innovation incentives with the public interest, particularly during public health emergencies when access to essential medicines becomes an urgent priority. Compulsory licensing has often been presented as a mechanism to strike that balance by expanding access to patented medicines. However, experience over the past two decades suggests that it rarely achieves this objective. Instead, compulsory licensing can undermine innovation incentives and technology partnerships while failing to address the principal barriers to access--manufacturing capacity, technology transfer, regulatory capability, and public health infrastructure. Strengthening voluntary licensing and the broader innovation ecosystem offers a more effective path to expanding access while preserving the incentives needed to develop future medicines.
Voluntary Licensing
Most multinational firms have trusted and thoroughly vetted partners in other nations to whom they license their products through what is known as a voluntary license (VL). This legal agreement occurs when the IP owner (licensor) grants a third party (licensee) permission to use its IP, such as a patent, copyright, or trademark. VL is the primary mechanism through which multinational pharmaceutical companies expand manufacturing and improve access to medicines. Under a VL, the IP owner authorizes another manufacturer to produce and distribute a patented product under mutually agreed terms. Importantly, these agreements typically extend beyond patent rights to include technology transfer, manufacturing know-how, quality assurance, regulatory support, and ongoing technical assistance, enabling trusted partners to produce complex products safely and at scale. Because VLs align commercial incentives with public health objectives, they have become the preferred model for expanding production. However, VL arrangements can come under stress when extraordinary circumstances disrupt this balance. Public health emergencies, surges in global demand that exceed manufacturing capacity, political pressure to expand access, geopolitical tensions, supply chain disruptions, or disagreements over commercial terms can all make voluntary agreements more difficult to negotiate or scale. Even under these conditions, however, the principal constraints are often manufacturing capabilities, technology transfer, and regulatory capacity rather than the availability of patent rights alone.
Compulsory Licensing
Compulsory licensing refers to a government authorization of the use of a patented invention without the consent of the patent holder. This is spelled out under Article 31 of the World Trade Organization's Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement of 1994, which introduced IP protections into the rules of the global trading system for the first time. While patent holders are still officially owed remuneration under Article 31, the mechanism enables governments to temporarily override exclusivity in cases of public interest, particularly in reference to public health exigencies. The 2001 Doha Declaration reaffirmed members' right to use such flexibilities.
While compulsory licensing provides an important legal flexibility during exceptional circumstances, the Covid-19 pandemic demonstrated that IP rights are rarely the principal constraint on access to vaccines and therapeutics. Rather, equitable access depends on a broader innovation ecosystem that combines scientific discovery with technology transfer, manufacturing know-how, regulatory expertise, resilient supply chains, and effective public health delivery systems. Voluntary licensing has proven more successful because it brings these complementary capabilities together, whereas compulsory licensing can authorize the use of a patent but cannot, on its own, create the technical capacity, production infrastructure, or institutional partnerships required to manufacture and distribute complex medical products at scale.
Reaction to Global Emergencies
While voluntary licensing is still the best way to ensure that safe, effective vaccines and therapeutics can be developed across the globe, global crises often cause countries to to stop trusting each other, making these agreements much harder to manage. The Covid-19 pandemic, notably, increased calls for CLs, revealing divisions between mostly Western "innovator" nations and much of the developing world over interpretation of IP protections.
As Figure 1 shows, calls for CLs over the past 25 years rise with the onset of global and regional heath crises. The first significant increase between 2003 and 2005 coincided with the global HIV/AIDS epidemic, when many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) sought greater access to antiretroviral medicines, alongside outbreaks such as SARS (2003) that heightened concerns about global health preparedness. A second wave of CLs in the early 2010s, particularly in Latin America, reflected efforts by countries including Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador to improve access to high-cost treatments for HIV/AIDS, cancer, and hepatitis C, even outside a single global pandemic. The largest surge occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic (2020-2022), when unprecedented global demand for vaccines and therapeutics renewed debates over IP protections and prompted widespread calls for compulsory licensing and temporary IP waivers. These episodes demonstrate that pressure for compulsory licensing tends to emerge during periods of acute public health need, when governments prioritize rapid access to essential medicines.
* * *
Figure 1: Calls for Compulsory Licensing of Medicines and Vaccines, 2000-2025
* * *
The Politics of CLs and the Costs to Innovation
Despite their foundational role, patents protecting biopharmaceutical innovations can come under stress during public health emergencies, when governments face pressure to deploy new medicines and vaccines to patients quickly and at scale. A recent case in point was the wave of actions unleashed during the Covid-19 pandemic to rush access to vaccines. Compulsory licensing--which allows a government or legal authority to grant a third-party permission to use a patented invention or copyrighted work without the owner's consent--were seen by some public authorities as a necessary stance to deliver a strong response to the multiyear health emergency.
Yet, as the experience of the pandemic reaffirmed, real-world access to vaccines and therapeutics depends less on legal authority and more on sustained innovation capacity, production readiness, and sustained investments in public health delivery infrastructure. This is in addition to the local transportation, infrastructure, and political issues that delayed and blocked access in many nations that sought CLs.
Pre-Covid Experience with CLs
Before the pandemic, CLs were often used as a bargaining tool to pressure patent holders during pricing disputes. In most cases, however, these efforts yielded limited or temporary results and did not expand domestic production or innovation capacity. In early 2000s, Brazil's repeated threats to issue CLs on HIV antiretrovirals prompted some short-term price reductions but failed to build local manufacturing capability or reduce long-term dependence on imports. Thailand's use of compulsory licensing between 2006 and 2008 similarly generated uncertainty among other countries and drew scrutiny from trading partners concerned about regulatory predictability.
The H5N1 avian influenza crisis of 2005 also illustrated the limitations of compulsory licensing as a rapid-access strategy. As fears of a pandemic escalated, several governments signaled their intent to issue compulsory licensing for Roche's antiviral drug Tamiflu, arguing that the company's production capacity would not meet global demand. Yet, no country that threatened a CL succeeded in producing or securing additional supply. The drug's manufacturing process was technically complex, dependent on specialized facilities and precursor materials, which most local manufacturers in developing nations lacked the capability to replicate. Instead, access improved only after Roche voluntarily entered into sub-licensing agreements with qualified producers in China and India. These partnerships expanded supply under regulated conditions while maintaining quality control and safeguarding technology transfer. Hence, the legal authority to override patents does little when the industrial and scientific capacity to manufacture is absent.
Between 2020 and 2022, several governments invoked or enabled a CL to address shortages of key therapeutics, yet few achieved meaningful production outcomes. Israel was the first mover in March 2020, issuing a CL to import generic versions of lopinavir/ritonavir, being tested at that time as a Covid treatment. Some governments including Brazil, Canada, Chile, Ecuador, and Germany streamlined legal pathways for compulsory licensing for the public health crisis. Hungary and Russia not only adopted new rules but also issued a CL for remdesivir. Further, countries such as India and South Africa co-led the push for a TRIPS waiver at the World Trade Organization, citing a broader demand for IP flexibilities during crises.
However, the pandemic also highlighted how voluntary licensing frameworks can achieve results that compulsory measures could not. In 2020, Gilead Sciences entered into a voluntary licensing agreements with seven Indian manufacturers to produce its antiviral remdesivir for distribution across LMICs. India later became a critical export hub, supplying over 298 million Covid-19 vaccine doses to nearly 100 countries through its Vaccine Maitri initiative. Further, Merck signed voluntary licensing deals through the Medicines Patent Pool in 2021, allowing 27 generic manufacturers in India and 10 other LMICs to produce molnupiravir, an oral antiviral for Covid-19. Ultimately, the pandemic once again showed that real access depends not on legal authority, but on a country's ability to innovate, produce, and scale critical technologies with sustained development.
The benefits of this model extend beyond Covid. The rollout of direct-acting antivirals for hepatitis C provides another example of how voluntary licensing can expand access at scale. Beginning in 2014, Gilead Sciences issued nonexclusive VLs to trusted generic manufacturers, including Ferozsons Laboratories, combining patent rights with technology transfer and local manufacturing. This enabled authorized generic versions of Sovaldi to be produced at substantially lower prices while maintaining quality standards and expanding access across LMICs. A 2019 difference-in-differences analysis found that countries covered by these voluntary licenses experienced significantly higher hepatitis C treatment uptake than comparable countries without such agreements, demonstrating that voluntary licensing is most effective when IP is paired with manufacturing capacity, technical know-how, and trusted production partnerships.
The contrast is instructive. Countries that relied on compulsory licensing generally struggled to translate legal authority into production, whereas voluntary licensing combined patent access with manufacturing know-how, quality control, regulatory support, and trusted commercial relationships. Voluntary licensing enables participation across the full innovation value chain--from intellectual property and technology transfer to manufacturing, regulatory approval, and commercial distribution--whereas compulsory licensing is largely limited to the first step: legal access to the patent.
Difficulty in CL Implementation
The United States, Japan, and much of the European Union are home to many of the world's major multinational biopharmaceutical firms and have criticized compulsory licensing, arguing that it creates market uncertainty. Unlike VL, CL reduces innovators' ability to control how proprietary technologies are deployed and commercialized. Even when patent holders receive royalties, the possibility that governments may override patents during future crises increases uncertainty surrounding the expected returns on high-risk R&D investments. For biopharmaceutical firms, whose products often require billions of dollars and more than a decade to develop, this uncertainty can influence decisions about where to invest, which technologies to pursue, and whether to engage in technology transfer partnerships in emerging markets. Moreover, for complex therapies such as biologics and mRNA vaccines, patents are only a part of what is needed. Producing these therapies also requires specialized know-how and manufacturing expertise, which CLs cannot provide. This makes compulsory licensing less effective for advanced medicines.
While proponents cited clear legal grounds for issuing CLs, their implementation exposed deep structural challenges. Even with patent rights waived or licensed, countries lacking biomanufacturing infrastructure could not readily produce equivalent medicines.
Implementing compulsory licensing is therefore far more complex than legal frameworks suggest. Mexico, for example, despite reforming its Federal Law for Protection of Industrial Property in 2020 to strengthen provision for compulsory licensing during health emergencies, has yet to issue a single license. Limited domestic production capacity, strong ties to multinational firms, and trade commitments under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement have made Mexico hesitant to use the mechanism. Moreover, the country's pharmaceutical sector is heavily shaped by the presence of multinational companies that invest in local clinical trials, supply chains, and technology partnerships. As Mexico seeks to expand its innovation footprint, with the government targeting roughly $2 billion annually in pharmaceutical and biotech research and development by 2030, issuing or even threatening CLs risks signaling policy instability, deterring foreign investment and slowing the cutting-edge technology essential to building long-term innovation capacity.
* * *
Figure 2: Geographic Distribution of Compulsory Licensing for Medicines and Vaccines Before and After Covid-19
* * *
As the immediate urgency of the pandemic has faded, momentum for issuing new CLs has slowed, even as efforts to formalize them within legal frameworks have accelerated.
Codifying a CL is seen as a symbol of health equity, even where the mechanism has rarely delivered tangible outcomes. In practice, expanding these provisions risks creating uncertainty for investors and innovators, particularly in sectors that depend on predictable IP protections and technology partnerships. South Africa's recent extension of compulsory licensing principles into the copyright domain, now being tested in a 2025 tribunal case, further illustrates how the concept is diffusing beyond its original intent.
Even so, in May 2025, the European Union reached a political agreement to establish a bloc-wide compulsory licensing regime for defined cross-border emergencies--a move intended to demonstrate preparedness rather than to address an operational gap. Similar discussions in Turkey, Latin America, and Southeast Asia reflect the same trend. The political desire for a national government to shift blame to an often-foreign company for its own inability to deliver access, rather than focus on building capacity or highlighting the successes of domestic licensees, runs the risk of remaining part of the politics after the crisis has ended.
While compulsory licensing has gained new political appeal as a preparedness measure, its practical and innovation value remains constrained. Without a supporting ecosystem of sustained investments in manufacturing capacity, incentives for technology transfer, and mechanisms that protect proprietary know-how while enabling access, compulsory licensing risks becoming a legal gesture than a practical tool.
* * *
Alexander Kersten is deputy director and fellow in Renewing American Innovation at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Shruti Sharma is a program manager and research associate in Renewing American Innovation at CSIS.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.csis.org/analysis/tracking-global-compulsory-licensing-trends-biopharmaceuticals
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
Tracking Global Compulsory Licensing Trends in Biopharmaceuticals
Secure intellectual property (IP) rights provide a stable and predictable framework for actors in the innovation ecosystem. IP rights provide the legal assurances that allow actors to collaborate and appropriately value their innovation. And by granting ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 23 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary on July 22, 2026, by deputy director and fellow Alexander Kersten and program manager and research associate Shruti Sharma, both of the Renewing American Innovation: * * * Tracking Global Compulsory Licensing Trends in Biopharmaceuticals Secure intellectual property (IP) rights provide a stable and predictable framework for actors in the innovation ecosystem. IP rights provide the legal assurances that allow actors to collaborate and appropriately value their innovation. And by grantingtime-limited exclusivity, patents further encourage private investment in high-risk research. As such, patents are at the foundation of a nation's innovation system. The U.S. patent system has helped mobilize billions of dollars for research and development (R&D) and accelerated life-enhancing and lifesaving technological progress across multiple sectors, including the biopharmaceutical industry.
Yet patents must also balance innovation incentives with the public interest, particularly during public health emergencies when access to essential medicines becomes an urgent priority. Compulsory licensing has often been presented as a mechanism to strike that balance by expanding access to patented medicines. However, experience over the past two decades suggests that it rarely achieves this objective. Instead, compulsory licensing can undermine innovation incentives and technology partnerships while failing to address the principal barriers to access--manufacturing capacity, technology transfer, regulatory capability, and public health infrastructure. Strengthening voluntary licensing and the broader innovation ecosystem offers a more effective path to expanding access while preserving the incentives needed to develop future medicines.
Voluntary Licensing
Most multinational firms have trusted and thoroughly vetted partners in other nations to whom they license their products through what is known as a voluntary license (VL). This legal agreement occurs when the IP owner (licensor) grants a third party (licensee) permission to use its IP, such as a patent, copyright, or trademark. VL is the primary mechanism through which multinational pharmaceutical companies expand manufacturing and improve access to medicines. Under a VL, the IP owner authorizes another manufacturer to produce and distribute a patented product under mutually agreed terms. Importantly, these agreements typically extend beyond patent rights to include technology transfer, manufacturing know-how, quality assurance, regulatory support, and ongoing technical assistance, enabling trusted partners to produce complex products safely and at scale. Because VLs align commercial incentives with public health objectives, they have become the preferred model for expanding production. However, VL arrangements can come under stress when extraordinary circumstances disrupt this balance. Public health emergencies, surges in global demand that exceed manufacturing capacity, political pressure to expand access, geopolitical tensions, supply chain disruptions, or disagreements over commercial terms can all make voluntary agreements more difficult to negotiate or scale. Even under these conditions, however, the principal constraints are often manufacturing capabilities, technology transfer, and regulatory capacity rather than the availability of patent rights alone.
Compulsory Licensing
Compulsory licensing refers to a government authorization of the use of a patented invention without the consent of the patent holder. This is spelled out under Article 31 of the World Trade Organization's Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement of 1994, which introduced IP protections into the rules of the global trading system for the first time. While patent holders are still officially owed remuneration under Article 31, the mechanism enables governments to temporarily override exclusivity in cases of public interest, particularly in reference to public health exigencies. The 2001 Doha Declaration reaffirmed members' right to use such flexibilities.
While compulsory licensing provides an important legal flexibility during exceptional circumstances, the Covid-19 pandemic demonstrated that IP rights are rarely the principal constraint on access to vaccines and therapeutics. Rather, equitable access depends on a broader innovation ecosystem that combines scientific discovery with technology transfer, manufacturing know-how, regulatory expertise, resilient supply chains, and effective public health delivery systems. Voluntary licensing has proven more successful because it brings these complementary capabilities together, whereas compulsory licensing can authorize the use of a patent but cannot, on its own, create the technical capacity, production infrastructure, or institutional partnerships required to manufacture and distribute complex medical products at scale.
Reaction to Global Emergencies
While voluntary licensing is still the best way to ensure that safe, effective vaccines and therapeutics can be developed across the globe, global crises often cause countries to to stop trusting each other, making these agreements much harder to manage. The Covid-19 pandemic, notably, increased calls for CLs, revealing divisions between mostly Western "innovator" nations and much of the developing world over interpretation of IP protections.
As Figure 1 shows, calls for CLs over the past 25 years rise with the onset of global and regional heath crises. The first significant increase between 2003 and 2005 coincided with the global HIV/AIDS epidemic, when many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) sought greater access to antiretroviral medicines, alongside outbreaks such as SARS (2003) that heightened concerns about global health preparedness. A second wave of CLs in the early 2010s, particularly in Latin America, reflected efforts by countries including Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador to improve access to high-cost treatments for HIV/AIDS, cancer, and hepatitis C, even outside a single global pandemic. The largest surge occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic (2020-2022), when unprecedented global demand for vaccines and therapeutics renewed debates over IP protections and prompted widespread calls for compulsory licensing and temporary IP waivers. These episodes demonstrate that pressure for compulsory licensing tends to emerge during periods of acute public health need, when governments prioritize rapid access to essential medicines.
* * *
Figure 1: Calls for Compulsory Licensing of Medicines and Vaccines, 2000-2025
* * *
The Politics of CLs and the Costs to Innovation
Despite their foundational role, patents protecting biopharmaceutical innovations can come under stress during public health emergencies, when governments face pressure to deploy new medicines and vaccines to patients quickly and at scale. A recent case in point was the wave of actions unleashed during the Covid-19 pandemic to rush access to vaccines. Compulsory licensing--which allows a government or legal authority to grant a third-party permission to use a patented invention or copyrighted work without the owner's consent--were seen by some public authorities as a necessary stance to deliver a strong response to the multiyear health emergency.
Yet, as the experience of the pandemic reaffirmed, real-world access to vaccines and therapeutics depends less on legal authority and more on sustained innovation capacity, production readiness, and sustained investments in public health delivery infrastructure. This is in addition to the local transportation, infrastructure, and political issues that delayed and blocked access in many nations that sought CLs.
Pre-Covid Experience with CLs
Before the pandemic, CLs were often used as a bargaining tool to pressure patent holders during pricing disputes. In most cases, however, these efforts yielded limited or temporary results and did not expand domestic production or innovation capacity. In early 2000s, Brazil's repeated threats to issue CLs on HIV antiretrovirals prompted some short-term price reductions but failed to build local manufacturing capability or reduce long-term dependence on imports. Thailand's use of compulsory licensing between 2006 and 2008 similarly generated uncertainty among other countries and drew scrutiny from trading partners concerned about regulatory predictability.
The H5N1 avian influenza crisis of 2005 also illustrated the limitations of compulsory licensing as a rapid-access strategy. As fears of a pandemic escalated, several governments signaled their intent to issue compulsory licensing for Roche's antiviral drug Tamiflu, arguing that the company's production capacity would not meet global demand. Yet, no country that threatened a CL succeeded in producing or securing additional supply. The drug's manufacturing process was technically complex, dependent on specialized facilities and precursor materials, which most local manufacturers in developing nations lacked the capability to replicate. Instead, access improved only after Roche voluntarily entered into sub-licensing agreements with qualified producers in China and India. These partnerships expanded supply under regulated conditions while maintaining quality control and safeguarding technology transfer. Hence, the legal authority to override patents does little when the industrial and scientific capacity to manufacture is absent.
Between 2020 and 2022, several governments invoked or enabled a CL to address shortages of key therapeutics, yet few achieved meaningful production outcomes. Israel was the first mover in March 2020, issuing a CL to import generic versions of lopinavir/ritonavir, being tested at that time as a Covid treatment. Some governments including Brazil, Canada, Chile, Ecuador, and Germany streamlined legal pathways for compulsory licensing for the public health crisis. Hungary and Russia not only adopted new rules but also issued a CL for remdesivir. Further, countries such as India and South Africa co-led the push for a TRIPS waiver at the World Trade Organization, citing a broader demand for IP flexibilities during crises.
However, the pandemic also highlighted how voluntary licensing frameworks can achieve results that compulsory measures could not. In 2020, Gilead Sciences entered into a voluntary licensing agreements with seven Indian manufacturers to produce its antiviral remdesivir for distribution across LMICs. India later became a critical export hub, supplying over 298 million Covid-19 vaccine doses to nearly 100 countries through its Vaccine Maitri initiative. Further, Merck signed voluntary licensing deals through the Medicines Patent Pool in 2021, allowing 27 generic manufacturers in India and 10 other LMICs to produce molnupiravir, an oral antiviral for Covid-19. Ultimately, the pandemic once again showed that real access depends not on legal authority, but on a country's ability to innovate, produce, and scale critical technologies with sustained development.
The benefits of this model extend beyond Covid. The rollout of direct-acting antivirals for hepatitis C provides another example of how voluntary licensing can expand access at scale. Beginning in 2014, Gilead Sciences issued nonexclusive VLs to trusted generic manufacturers, including Ferozsons Laboratories, combining patent rights with technology transfer and local manufacturing. This enabled authorized generic versions of Sovaldi to be produced at substantially lower prices while maintaining quality standards and expanding access across LMICs. A 2019 difference-in-differences analysis found that countries covered by these voluntary licenses experienced significantly higher hepatitis C treatment uptake than comparable countries without such agreements, demonstrating that voluntary licensing is most effective when IP is paired with manufacturing capacity, technical know-how, and trusted production partnerships.
The contrast is instructive. Countries that relied on compulsory licensing generally struggled to translate legal authority into production, whereas voluntary licensing combined patent access with manufacturing know-how, quality control, regulatory support, and trusted commercial relationships. Voluntary licensing enables participation across the full innovation value chain--from intellectual property and technology transfer to manufacturing, regulatory approval, and commercial distribution--whereas compulsory licensing is largely limited to the first step: legal access to the patent.
Difficulty in CL Implementation
The United States, Japan, and much of the European Union are home to many of the world's major multinational biopharmaceutical firms and have criticized compulsory licensing, arguing that it creates market uncertainty. Unlike VL, CL reduces innovators' ability to control how proprietary technologies are deployed and commercialized. Even when patent holders receive royalties, the possibility that governments may override patents during future crises increases uncertainty surrounding the expected returns on high-risk R&D investments. For biopharmaceutical firms, whose products often require billions of dollars and more than a decade to develop, this uncertainty can influence decisions about where to invest, which technologies to pursue, and whether to engage in technology transfer partnerships in emerging markets. Moreover, for complex therapies such as biologics and mRNA vaccines, patents are only a part of what is needed. Producing these therapies also requires specialized know-how and manufacturing expertise, which CLs cannot provide. This makes compulsory licensing less effective for advanced medicines.
While proponents cited clear legal grounds for issuing CLs, their implementation exposed deep structural challenges. Even with patent rights waived or licensed, countries lacking biomanufacturing infrastructure could not readily produce equivalent medicines.
Implementing compulsory licensing is therefore far more complex than legal frameworks suggest. Mexico, for example, despite reforming its Federal Law for Protection of Industrial Property in 2020 to strengthen provision for compulsory licensing during health emergencies, has yet to issue a single license. Limited domestic production capacity, strong ties to multinational firms, and trade commitments under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement have made Mexico hesitant to use the mechanism. Moreover, the country's pharmaceutical sector is heavily shaped by the presence of multinational companies that invest in local clinical trials, supply chains, and technology partnerships. As Mexico seeks to expand its innovation footprint, with the government targeting roughly $2 billion annually in pharmaceutical and biotech research and development by 2030, issuing or even threatening CLs risks signaling policy instability, deterring foreign investment and slowing the cutting-edge technology essential to building long-term innovation capacity.
* * *
Figure 2: Geographic Distribution of Compulsory Licensing for Medicines and Vaccines Before and After Covid-19
* * *
As the immediate urgency of the pandemic has faded, momentum for issuing new CLs has slowed, even as efforts to formalize them within legal frameworks have accelerated.
Codifying a CL is seen as a symbol of health equity, even where the mechanism has rarely delivered tangible outcomes. In practice, expanding these provisions risks creating uncertainty for investors and innovators, particularly in sectors that depend on predictable IP protections and technology partnerships. South Africa's recent extension of compulsory licensing principles into the copyright domain, now being tested in a 2025 tribunal case, further illustrates how the concept is diffusing beyond its original intent.
Even so, in May 2025, the European Union reached a political agreement to establish a bloc-wide compulsory licensing regime for defined cross-border emergencies--a move intended to demonstrate preparedness rather than to address an operational gap. Similar discussions in Turkey, Latin America, and Southeast Asia reflect the same trend. The political desire for a national government to shift blame to an often-foreign company for its own inability to deliver access, rather than focus on building capacity or highlighting the successes of domestic licensees, runs the risk of remaining part of the politics after the crisis has ended.
While compulsory licensing has gained new political appeal as a preparedness measure, its practical and innovation value remains constrained. Without a supporting ecosystem of sustained investments in manufacturing capacity, incentives for technology transfer, and mechanisms that protect proprietary know-how while enabling access, compulsory licensing risks becoming a legal gesture than a practical tool.
* * *
Alexander Kersten is deputy director and fellow in Renewing American Innovation at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Shruti Sharma is a program manager and research associate in Renewing American Innovation at CSIS.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.csis.org/analysis/tracking-global-compulsory-licensing-trends-biopharmaceuticals
[Category: ThinkTank]
CSIS Issues Commentary: AI Strategies and the Informal Economy - Africa's Job Creation Test
WASHINGTON, July 23 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary on July 22, 2026, by Ayantola Alayande, researcher at the Global Center on AI Governance, deputy director and fellow Aaron Stanley and associate fellow Catherine Nzuki, both of the Africa Program:
* * *
AI Strategies and the Informal Economy: Africa's Job Creation Test
AI is arriving at a critical time in Africa's labor market transformation. The continent is projected to add 700 million workers by 2050, accounting for 85 percent of global workforce growth. Yet, employment opportunities ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 23 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary on July 22, 2026, by Ayantola Alayande, researcher at the Global Center on AI Governance, deputy director and fellow Aaron Stanley and associate fellow Catherine Nzuki, both of the Africa Program: * * * AI Strategies and the Informal Economy: Africa's Job Creation Test AI is arriving at a critical time in Africa's labor market transformation. The continent is projected to add 700 million workers by 2050, accounting for 85 percent of global workforce growth. Yet, employment opportunitieshave not kept pace with population growth. Approximately 81 percent of jobs on the continent are informal, posing challenges to decent livelihoods, job security, and upskilling opportunities, particularly for the continent's youth. Africa as a whole needs to create an additional 15 million jobs per year to keep up with its rising workforce.
* * *
Figure 1: AI Diffusion by Region (Unweighted Regional Average)
* * *
This job creation deficit is compounded by the uncertainty surrounding AI's impact on the workforce. In the short term, with productivity gains from AI currently concentrated in desk-based professional roles, Africa's informal sectors will be buffered from AI-related job losses. In the medium and long term, Africa's informal sectors are in danger of realizing only limited gains from the AI revolution or missing out completely. The creative promise of AI, if intentionally integrated into the informal, small-scale business economy, could facilitate the entrepreneurship and innovation that are foundational to the continent's long-term economic growth. Projected digital and AI jobs are gig-based roles that could absorb informal workers, provided the right infrastructure and training ecosystems are put in place. The African Development Bank estimates that AI could account for nearly one-fifth of Africa's total GDP growth by 2035, creating up to 40 million jobs across the agriculture, healthcare, retail, finance, and manufacturing sectors. Whether AI delivers on this potential will depend on how and whether AI strategies address Africa's informal workers.
Examining the Job Creation and Workforce Potential of AI
While Africa's vast informality may limit exposure to job automation, it may also make the continent less able to capture AI's technological gains. Overall, however, public and policymaker perceptions of AI across Africa are positive. The growing consensus in African policy circles is that AI can be leveraged to expand productivity and deliver jobs in critical sectors. Similarly, in a recent survey, half of African respondents were optimistic that AI will improve their work opportunities in the short and medium term.
Policies at the continental and national levels clearly express this ambition for AI-driven economic growth. The African Union's Continental AI Strategy outlines the potential for adoption to accelerate its Agenda 2063 by deploying AI in critical sectors such as agriculture, education, and health. Relatedly, national AI frameworks in some of the continent's largest economies, such as Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, all frame AI as a tool for job creation, economic diversification, and skills development.
The CSIS Africa Program is partnering with the Global Center for AI Governance with support from Cisco to conduct cross-country research in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa on the opportunities and challenges of national AI strategies for job creation. The report will review national AI policies in comparison to the respective governments' stated job creation goals. While each of these strategies reflects genuine ambition, they also recognize the structural challenges, such as limited digital infrastructure and a digital access divide. Navigating these constraints requires policy responses tailored to each country's unique economic structure, workforce composition, and infrastructure readiness. Critical in this equation is the question of how to engage the informal economy.
Identifying Focus Areas and Gaps in National AI Strategies
African policymakers have shown significant commitment to AI adoption, demonstrated by stronger performance compared to previous years across key levers of AI research, capacity building, and compute infrastructure. Between 2023 and 2025, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa rose 33, 31, and 12 places, respectively, on the Oxford Government AI Readiness Index.
Beyond adoption, AI policies at both the continental and national levels show a dedicated focus on homegrown economic development through an AI-driven economy. As policy is put into practice, priority is being given to delivering capacity-building programs to support targeted AI applications and development. Data from the 2026 Global Index on Responsible AI shows that AI literacy, reskilling and upskilling initiatives, and public sector skills development are areas with the highest number of AI policy implementation programs supported by African governments. In addition to skills investment, a strong national strategy focused on job creation and economic gains will also include local infrastructure development, private partnerships, and transition support for sectors and industries that spur AI use and integration, including for workers.
Across Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, AI strategies generally show a clear commitment to supply-side policies in the form of skills investment, local infrastructure, and partnerships with private technology companies, while also reflecting the variations in their respective economic conditions. For instance, the Nigerian government has largely focused on extensive upskilling programs and investment in homegrown AI research clusters. Its flagship program, the 3 Million Technical Talent (3MTT), aims to train 3 million Nigerians in core digital technology skills, including AI, with over 135,000 participants so far. Extensions of the 3MTT into AI-specific skills have been supported by the private sector, including a partnership with Microsoft to train 1 million Nigerians in AI skills. Complementing these are research and development (R&D) activities centered around universities and government research clusters, such as the repurposing of the National Centre for AI and Robotics to carry out modern large language model research and a partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to establish regional AI clusters in six universities across the country.
Kenya's strategy focuses heavily on infrastructure investment and local innovations. Its five-year AI Strategy, backed by a $1 billion (KES 152 billion) implementation budget, positions AI within the country's broader digital economy master plan, which focuses on leveraging technology to accelerate economic growth through infrastructure expansion, government e-services, and skills upgrades. A large part of the AI budget seeks to develop connectivity, data centers, and innovation hubs. This infrastructure is designed to complement Kenya's already-strategic position in Africa's digital economy, with an established track record of attracting foreign digitally focused investment. Nairobi alone is home to approximately 500 startups and serves as a major regional hub for Google and Microsoft. Additionally, Kenya has made strides to prioritize upskilling in the public sector. The Africa Center of Competence for Digital and Artificial Intelligence Skilling, jointly established with UNDP and Microsoft, aims to incubate public sector AI innovation, train over 1,000 AI specialists, and expand AI literacy in Kenyan schools.
South Africa's National AI Policy framework draft, previously released for public comment, outlines a more detailed approach to the country's economic aspirations in AI, with "AI for Inclusive Growth and Job Creation" as one of its six strategic pillars. While the implementation of this policy largely remains in the balance given its recent recall by the ministry, the framework has emerged within strong institutional capacity-building initiatives, such as AI skills development partnerships with major tech companies, and R&D initiatives. For example, the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies is funding the AI Institute of South Africa, which hosts university hubs actively driving localized AI projects and workforce reskilling in critical sectors such as mining, agriculture, and government administration.
For all their strengths, however, these three countries' AI strategies and implementation initiatives lack concrete policies and measures to spur AI integration in the informal sector. Particularly for countries such as Nigeria and Kenya, where the vast majority of economic activity is informal, an overtly industry-focused AI policy implementation will serve only a limited proportion of the economy.
A Closer Look at Informality in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa
The informal sector accounts for 93 percent of employment in Nigeria, 84 percent in Kenya, and a much smaller 21 percent in South Africa, based on the latest data available. The informal economy encompasses business activities that fall outside of the regulatory and legal environment governing businesses. This means they largely go untaxed and unregulated.
* * *
Figure 2: Formal vs. Informal Employment: Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa
* * *
In both Kenya and Nigeria, the concentration of informal employment is in agriculture, followed by trade and commerce, reflecting the continued reliance of informal workers on smallholder farming and small-scale retail. While South Africa's informal workforce is significantly smaller, it is also concentrated in small-scale retail, street and market vending, artisanal manufacturing, and other industries such as domestic work and childcare. Examples of informal work include farmers with small plots of land growing food for their own households or for sale at local markets, roadside and market vendors, local artisans and handymen, and independent taxi, bus, and truck drivers, to name a few.
Given the manual-, service-, and trade-based focus of informal work, it is not yet one of the focus areas for AI applications. While informal workers can and do deploy AI tools to assist their businesses with rote tasks such as simple accounting, branding, and social media posts, this use is relatively limited compared to applications in other sectors.
* * *
Figure 3: Informal Employment by Sector: Nigeria and Kenya
* * *
What Are the Options for Informal Economic Integration with National AI Strategies?
Despite the current orientation of national AI strategies toward the formal sector and supply-side interventions such as infrastructure development, talent pipelines, R&D, and startup ecosystems, there remains room to pivot toward the informal majority. Acknowledging the importance of the informal sector to the livelihoods of citizens in these countries and treating the sector as a distinct policy target opens a range of options for bringing the stated goals of job creation, economic diversification, and skills development to the majority.
First, an informally focused AI policy would be designed with sectors such as smallholder agriculture, transportation, artisanal manufacturing, and retail in mind. This means recognizing the local limitations that accelerate the digital divide. AI tools that take the barriers seriously would be offline-capable, incorporate voice- and image-first options, and work across multiple local languages.
Second, implementation road maps to meet policy goals would focus on sector-specific, complementary applications. There may be limited immediate utility of AI tools for direct labor in informal jobs, such as those of an artisanal furniture manufacturer, a smallholder farmer, or a truck driver. However, complementary applications that enable and streamline business, such as alternative data credit, crop diagnostics, and freight matching, are genuinely useful.
Third, resources would flow to informal operators to encourage engagement and spur experimentation. Subsidies, tax incentives, and grants that can spur demand and use in the informal sector, as well as startup and small and medium enterprise (SME) support, can be combined with new forms of credit and blended finance to unlock greater engagement with AI in the informal sector. This is critical to addressing the demand-side deficit.
Fourth, labor and economic data needs to include questions on AI adoption and labor transition in informal sectors. Embedding these questions into the surveys that national statistics agencies already run creates an evidence base to inform iterative implementation. Combining public data with privately compiled workforce data, which would enable more real-time, actionable insights, would be even better.
Fifth, underpinning all of this must be data governance regimes that are accessible, transparent, and understandable to the people engaging with these tools. Such governance frameworks and the AI tools they underpin must also be interoperable across national boundaries and jurisdictions. Cross-border intra-African trade is currently estimated to be between 7 and 16 percent of all trade flows. Therefore, creating the enabling conditions for credit, payments, and data tools to flow and function seamlessly across borders is an essential element of inclusive economic engagement.
None of these pivots requires new strategies, frameworks, or policies. The AI policies and broader digital strategies of these countries already include elements that can be supplemented by implementation choices focused on informal sectors. Kenya's strategy identifies micro and small enterprises as a priority sector and aligns with the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda, which can create opportunities for workforce transition frameworks and for identifying protections for informal and gig workers. Nigeria can turn its commitment to the informal economy by adding an informal training track to the 3MTT program. South Africa also already has a pillar of its AI policy on AI for inclusive growth and job creation, which can be strengthened through data-driven engagement with the country's largest informal sectors, such as retail and transportation. Made as concrete, measurable commitments, those choices would build the momentum for ongoing enhancement and engagement with the citizens these sectors sustain.
Ultimately, for most African economies, a truly meaningful AI pathway must target traders, farmers, drivers, artisans, and others who are largely excluded from the current AI use trajectory. Across Africa, informality is the test of whether AI creates broad-based work that achieves economic development goals and lives up to its promises or simply deepens an existing divide.
Going beyond informality, the forthcoming Global Center for AI Governance and CSIS Africa program report takes an even deeper look at alignment between economic sectors, workforces, AI integration, and policy frameworks in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa.
* * *
Ayantola Alayande is a researcher at the Global Center on AI Governance. Catherine Nzuki is an associate fellow with the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Aaron Stanley is deputy director and fellow in the Africa Program at CSIS.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.csis.org/analysis/ai-strategies-and-informal-economy-africas-job-creation-test
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
AI Strategies and the Informal Economy: Africa's Job Creation Test
AI is arriving at a critical time in Africa's labor market transformation. The continent is projected to add 700 million workers by 2050, accounting for 85 percent of global workforce growth. Yet, employment opportunities ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 23 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary on July 22, 2026, by Ayantola Alayande, researcher at the Global Center on AI Governance, deputy director and fellow Aaron Stanley and associate fellow Catherine Nzuki, both of the Africa Program: * * * AI Strategies and the Informal Economy: Africa's Job Creation Test AI is arriving at a critical time in Africa's labor market transformation. The continent is projected to add 700 million workers by 2050, accounting for 85 percent of global workforce growth. Yet, employment opportunitieshave not kept pace with population growth. Approximately 81 percent of jobs on the continent are informal, posing challenges to decent livelihoods, job security, and upskilling opportunities, particularly for the continent's youth. Africa as a whole needs to create an additional 15 million jobs per year to keep up with its rising workforce.
* * *
Figure 1: AI Diffusion by Region (Unweighted Regional Average)
* * *
This job creation deficit is compounded by the uncertainty surrounding AI's impact on the workforce. In the short term, with productivity gains from AI currently concentrated in desk-based professional roles, Africa's informal sectors will be buffered from AI-related job losses. In the medium and long term, Africa's informal sectors are in danger of realizing only limited gains from the AI revolution or missing out completely. The creative promise of AI, if intentionally integrated into the informal, small-scale business economy, could facilitate the entrepreneurship and innovation that are foundational to the continent's long-term economic growth. Projected digital and AI jobs are gig-based roles that could absorb informal workers, provided the right infrastructure and training ecosystems are put in place. The African Development Bank estimates that AI could account for nearly one-fifth of Africa's total GDP growth by 2035, creating up to 40 million jobs across the agriculture, healthcare, retail, finance, and manufacturing sectors. Whether AI delivers on this potential will depend on how and whether AI strategies address Africa's informal workers.
Examining the Job Creation and Workforce Potential of AI
While Africa's vast informality may limit exposure to job automation, it may also make the continent less able to capture AI's technological gains. Overall, however, public and policymaker perceptions of AI across Africa are positive. The growing consensus in African policy circles is that AI can be leveraged to expand productivity and deliver jobs in critical sectors. Similarly, in a recent survey, half of African respondents were optimistic that AI will improve their work opportunities in the short and medium term.
Policies at the continental and national levels clearly express this ambition for AI-driven economic growth. The African Union's Continental AI Strategy outlines the potential for adoption to accelerate its Agenda 2063 by deploying AI in critical sectors such as agriculture, education, and health. Relatedly, national AI frameworks in some of the continent's largest economies, such as Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, all frame AI as a tool for job creation, economic diversification, and skills development.
The CSIS Africa Program is partnering with the Global Center for AI Governance with support from Cisco to conduct cross-country research in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa on the opportunities and challenges of national AI strategies for job creation. The report will review national AI policies in comparison to the respective governments' stated job creation goals. While each of these strategies reflects genuine ambition, they also recognize the structural challenges, such as limited digital infrastructure and a digital access divide. Navigating these constraints requires policy responses tailored to each country's unique economic structure, workforce composition, and infrastructure readiness. Critical in this equation is the question of how to engage the informal economy.
Identifying Focus Areas and Gaps in National AI Strategies
African policymakers have shown significant commitment to AI adoption, demonstrated by stronger performance compared to previous years across key levers of AI research, capacity building, and compute infrastructure. Between 2023 and 2025, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa rose 33, 31, and 12 places, respectively, on the Oxford Government AI Readiness Index.
Beyond adoption, AI policies at both the continental and national levels show a dedicated focus on homegrown economic development through an AI-driven economy. As policy is put into practice, priority is being given to delivering capacity-building programs to support targeted AI applications and development. Data from the 2026 Global Index on Responsible AI shows that AI literacy, reskilling and upskilling initiatives, and public sector skills development are areas with the highest number of AI policy implementation programs supported by African governments. In addition to skills investment, a strong national strategy focused on job creation and economic gains will also include local infrastructure development, private partnerships, and transition support for sectors and industries that spur AI use and integration, including for workers.
Across Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, AI strategies generally show a clear commitment to supply-side policies in the form of skills investment, local infrastructure, and partnerships with private technology companies, while also reflecting the variations in their respective economic conditions. For instance, the Nigerian government has largely focused on extensive upskilling programs and investment in homegrown AI research clusters. Its flagship program, the 3 Million Technical Talent (3MTT), aims to train 3 million Nigerians in core digital technology skills, including AI, with over 135,000 participants so far. Extensions of the 3MTT into AI-specific skills have been supported by the private sector, including a partnership with Microsoft to train 1 million Nigerians in AI skills. Complementing these are research and development (R&D) activities centered around universities and government research clusters, such as the repurposing of the National Centre for AI and Robotics to carry out modern large language model research and a partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to establish regional AI clusters in six universities across the country.
Kenya's strategy focuses heavily on infrastructure investment and local innovations. Its five-year AI Strategy, backed by a $1 billion (KES 152 billion) implementation budget, positions AI within the country's broader digital economy master plan, which focuses on leveraging technology to accelerate economic growth through infrastructure expansion, government e-services, and skills upgrades. A large part of the AI budget seeks to develop connectivity, data centers, and innovation hubs. This infrastructure is designed to complement Kenya's already-strategic position in Africa's digital economy, with an established track record of attracting foreign digitally focused investment. Nairobi alone is home to approximately 500 startups and serves as a major regional hub for Google and Microsoft. Additionally, Kenya has made strides to prioritize upskilling in the public sector. The Africa Center of Competence for Digital and Artificial Intelligence Skilling, jointly established with UNDP and Microsoft, aims to incubate public sector AI innovation, train over 1,000 AI specialists, and expand AI literacy in Kenyan schools.
South Africa's National AI Policy framework draft, previously released for public comment, outlines a more detailed approach to the country's economic aspirations in AI, with "AI for Inclusive Growth and Job Creation" as one of its six strategic pillars. While the implementation of this policy largely remains in the balance given its recent recall by the ministry, the framework has emerged within strong institutional capacity-building initiatives, such as AI skills development partnerships with major tech companies, and R&D initiatives. For example, the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies is funding the AI Institute of South Africa, which hosts university hubs actively driving localized AI projects and workforce reskilling in critical sectors such as mining, agriculture, and government administration.
For all their strengths, however, these three countries' AI strategies and implementation initiatives lack concrete policies and measures to spur AI integration in the informal sector. Particularly for countries such as Nigeria and Kenya, where the vast majority of economic activity is informal, an overtly industry-focused AI policy implementation will serve only a limited proportion of the economy.
A Closer Look at Informality in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa
The informal sector accounts for 93 percent of employment in Nigeria, 84 percent in Kenya, and a much smaller 21 percent in South Africa, based on the latest data available. The informal economy encompasses business activities that fall outside of the regulatory and legal environment governing businesses. This means they largely go untaxed and unregulated.
* * *
Figure 2: Formal vs. Informal Employment: Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa
* * *
In both Kenya and Nigeria, the concentration of informal employment is in agriculture, followed by trade and commerce, reflecting the continued reliance of informal workers on smallholder farming and small-scale retail. While South Africa's informal workforce is significantly smaller, it is also concentrated in small-scale retail, street and market vending, artisanal manufacturing, and other industries such as domestic work and childcare. Examples of informal work include farmers with small plots of land growing food for their own households or for sale at local markets, roadside and market vendors, local artisans and handymen, and independent taxi, bus, and truck drivers, to name a few.
Given the manual-, service-, and trade-based focus of informal work, it is not yet one of the focus areas for AI applications. While informal workers can and do deploy AI tools to assist their businesses with rote tasks such as simple accounting, branding, and social media posts, this use is relatively limited compared to applications in other sectors.
* * *
Figure 3: Informal Employment by Sector: Nigeria and Kenya
* * *
What Are the Options for Informal Economic Integration with National AI Strategies?
Despite the current orientation of national AI strategies toward the formal sector and supply-side interventions such as infrastructure development, talent pipelines, R&D, and startup ecosystems, there remains room to pivot toward the informal majority. Acknowledging the importance of the informal sector to the livelihoods of citizens in these countries and treating the sector as a distinct policy target opens a range of options for bringing the stated goals of job creation, economic diversification, and skills development to the majority.
First, an informally focused AI policy would be designed with sectors such as smallholder agriculture, transportation, artisanal manufacturing, and retail in mind. This means recognizing the local limitations that accelerate the digital divide. AI tools that take the barriers seriously would be offline-capable, incorporate voice- and image-first options, and work across multiple local languages.
Second, implementation road maps to meet policy goals would focus on sector-specific, complementary applications. There may be limited immediate utility of AI tools for direct labor in informal jobs, such as those of an artisanal furniture manufacturer, a smallholder farmer, or a truck driver. However, complementary applications that enable and streamline business, such as alternative data credit, crop diagnostics, and freight matching, are genuinely useful.
Third, resources would flow to informal operators to encourage engagement and spur experimentation. Subsidies, tax incentives, and grants that can spur demand and use in the informal sector, as well as startup and small and medium enterprise (SME) support, can be combined with new forms of credit and blended finance to unlock greater engagement with AI in the informal sector. This is critical to addressing the demand-side deficit.
Fourth, labor and economic data needs to include questions on AI adoption and labor transition in informal sectors. Embedding these questions into the surveys that national statistics agencies already run creates an evidence base to inform iterative implementation. Combining public data with privately compiled workforce data, which would enable more real-time, actionable insights, would be even better.
Fifth, underpinning all of this must be data governance regimes that are accessible, transparent, and understandable to the people engaging with these tools. Such governance frameworks and the AI tools they underpin must also be interoperable across national boundaries and jurisdictions. Cross-border intra-African trade is currently estimated to be between 7 and 16 percent of all trade flows. Therefore, creating the enabling conditions for credit, payments, and data tools to flow and function seamlessly across borders is an essential element of inclusive economic engagement.
None of these pivots requires new strategies, frameworks, or policies. The AI policies and broader digital strategies of these countries already include elements that can be supplemented by implementation choices focused on informal sectors. Kenya's strategy identifies micro and small enterprises as a priority sector and aligns with the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda, which can create opportunities for workforce transition frameworks and for identifying protections for informal and gig workers. Nigeria can turn its commitment to the informal economy by adding an informal training track to the 3MTT program. South Africa also already has a pillar of its AI policy on AI for inclusive growth and job creation, which can be strengthened through data-driven engagement with the country's largest informal sectors, such as retail and transportation. Made as concrete, measurable commitments, those choices would build the momentum for ongoing enhancement and engagement with the citizens these sectors sustain.
Ultimately, for most African economies, a truly meaningful AI pathway must target traders, farmers, drivers, artisans, and others who are largely excluded from the current AI use trajectory. Across Africa, informality is the test of whether AI creates broad-based work that achieves economic development goals and lives up to its promises or simply deepens an existing divide.
Going beyond informality, the forthcoming Global Center for AI Governance and CSIS Africa program report takes an even deeper look at alignment between economic sectors, workforces, AI integration, and policy frameworks in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa.
* * *
Ayantola Alayande is a researcher at the Global Center on AI Governance. Catherine Nzuki is an associate fellow with the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Aaron Stanley is deputy director and fellow in the Africa Program at CSIS.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.csis.org/analysis/ai-strategies-and-informal-economy-africas-job-creation-test
[Category: ThinkTank]