The Omicron variant appears to spread more rapidly than previous variants and the International Monetary Fund estimates that a prolonged pandemic could reduce GDP by an additional $5.3 trillion over the next five years. For governments seeking to contain Covid-19 outbreaks, more transmissible variants will compound the tradeoffs between protecting public health and allowing unrestricted activities.

SOURCE: "Five Things to Watch in 2022" by CSIS's Matthew P. Goodman, Gerard DiPippo, Jonathan E. Hillman, and Matthew Reynolds.

Sustained economic development is crucial to China’s rise and underpins many elements of Chinese power. However, according to official government figures, China’s GDP fell 6.8 percent in the first quarter of 2020, compared to the same period in 2019. Industrial output and retail sales saw even sharper declines, dipping 8.5 percent and 19 percent, respectively.

SOURCE: "Will the Dual Circulation Strategy Enable China to Compete in a Post-Pandemic World?" by the CSIS China Power Project.

Lebanon’s political crisis is now creating unprecedented humanitarian needs for Lebanese, the size and scale of which are rapidly increasing. Lebanon’s poverty rate has doubled in two years, from 42 percent in 2019 to 82 percent in 2021 and now one-third of all Lebanese are food insecure.

SOURCE: "Lebanon’s Growing Humanitarian Crisis" by CSIS's Will Todman and Caleb Harper.

More than 24 million people around the world are subjected to forced labor, and tens of millions more work under other abusive labor conditions. As governments increasingly move to mandate human rights due diligence by end-user companies, and some leading companies seek to improve respect for human rights in their own supply chains, blockchain has been proposed as a means to support more robust supply chain traceability and transparency.

SOURCE: "The Human Rights Risks and Opportunities in Blockchain" by William Crumpler and the CSIS Strategic Technologies Program.