Perhaps for most in the developed world, the image of African poverty is a teeming urban slum, such as can be found in Lagos, Kinshasa, or Luanda. Yet, as Professor Leif Brottem discusses, rural poverty is more widespread and more extreme. He notes that by 2030, some nine out of ten of those living in extreme poverty will be sub-Saharan African, disproportionately rural residents of fragile states with weak institutions and often wracked with conflict.

Central American migration may prove the new administration’s biggest first challenge.

I wrote the following piece on crime in Venezuela for foreignpolicy.com. Mention violence in Latin America today and most people think of Mexico. But if you want to talk about murder, the region’s ho…