Insights

This report aims to analyse the major trends that have shaped the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) over the past two decades and develop a set of research-based policy recommendations to help address chronic challenges and identify growth opportunities that will contribute to the region’s prosperity and stability.

This is the first of Audere’s three-part series of strategic analysis on the war in Ukraine. This month we look at the tactical and operational military aspects of the conflict, the different objectives of Kyiv and Moscow, and the evolution of the war as winter starts to impact operations.

More than eight months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the armed conflict is now entering a new phase. High-intensity war operations are truncating along a relatively well-defined military geography in Ukraine with Russia’s faltering advance grinding to a halt, while Kyiv’s counter-offensives are unlikely to achieve any major territorial gains in the coming weeks. The situation is compounded by the inevitable arrival of winter as both sides prepare for a new phase of the conflict.

The current military conflict in Ukraine has caused significant disruption to the world’s economic affairs. In the past couple of days, we have identified the most notable developments in Russia that will affect global and regional business communities.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has further dampened the economic prospects for developing countries in Asia, meaning lower economic growth and higher poverty. In the past few days, some countries in Asia have been witnessing significant local economic stress and political turmoil, bringing further uncertainty to the region.

Following COP26 an emphasis on sustainability within the financial sector has increased substantially. Specifically, investors are looking to invest in sectors with a strong environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) focus. India has 10 ESG-exclusive funds, 6 of which were introduced in FY21. This has diversified ESG investment portfolio in the country.

The UK is considered to have “lost the art of grand strategy” since 1960s when the country “lost an empire but [had] not yet found a role”. With Brexit, a game-changer for UK foreign policy, a new strategy was needed to define the UK’s future outside the EU.

For investors and businesses, doing business and investing in frontier and emerging markets is all about assessing risk, and pricing it. In some ways, risk is in the eye of the beholder, and risk premia differ depending on who is doing the pricing.

In many Arab and muslim countries and communities worldwide, tomorrow marks the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan.

Russians have a bracing midwinter tradition of cutting a hole in the ice and plunging into the icy water beneath. That is what has just happened to US/Russia relations.

China-bound export growth accelerated in the latter half of 2020; in 2019, 40% of the top US-destined exporting firms in China were from Taiwan. To escape dependence, Taiwan’s long-standing electronics intermediates trade with China may need to be re-routed.

Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) criteria have become increasingly important in global investment markets in recent years. Some $40 trillion, more than a quarter of total professionally managed assets, is now in funds that have overt ESG objectives.