Developing world articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    The study examines how land property rights impact land use efficiency (LUE) globally, based on the SDG 11.3.1 indicator. Secure rights improve LUE, with common law countries outperforming civil law countries, supporting sustainable land management.

    • Junrong Ma
    • , Li Tian
    •  & Wei Ouyang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Rice production in India is a foundation for global food security, but strategies for sustainable intensification are uncertain. By combining large-scale surveys with predictive modeling, the authors identify efficient pathways for achieving productivity gains while enhancing economic and environmental goals.

    • Hari Sankar Nayak
    • , Andrew J. McDonald
    •  & João Vasco Silva

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Earth observations show that flash flood erosion in the Derna watershed in Libya aggravated the disastrous impacts of Storm Daniel catastrophic flood. The authors demonstrate the urgent need to mitigate the increased vulnerability of coastal watersheds in arid areas.

    • Jonathan C. L. Normand
    •  & Essam Heggy

  • Perspective
    | Open Access

    Bridge fires cause significant disruptions and economic losses in modern society, yet fire hazards are still often ignored or oversimplified in bridge design. This Perspective emphasizes the need for more holistic and comprehensive fire-safety design when retrofitting or designing new bridges.

    • Andrea Franchini
    • , Bosibori Barake
    •  & Jose L. Torero

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hickel and colleagues find that, in 2021, the economies of the global North net-appropriated 826 billion hours of embodied labour from the global South, across all skill levels and sectors. Unequal exchange is understood to be driven in part by systematic wage inequalities. They find Southern wages are 87-95% lower than Northern wages for work of equal skill. While Southern workers contribute 90% of the labour that powers the world economy, they receive only 21% of global income.

    • Jason Hickel
    • , Morena Hanbury Lemos
    •  & Felix Barbour

  • Article
    | Open Access

    El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has been shown to relate to the epidemiology of child infectious diseases, but evidence for child deaths is limited. Here, the authors show that maternal exposure to high levels of ENSO before conception and giving birth may increase under-five mortality.

    • Hongbing Xu
    • , Castiel Chen Zhuang
    •  & Wei Huang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Yu and colleagues leverage population-level data to construct a large-scale, geographically defined, inter-household social network. Using a multilevel network model, they show that having social ties in close geographic proximity is associated with stable household asset conditions, while geographically distant ties correlate to changes in asset allocation. Notably, they find that localised network interactions are associated with an increase in wealth inequality at the regional level, demonstrating how macro-level inequality may arise from micro-level social processes.

    • Shao-Tzu Yu
    • , Peng Wang
    •  & Brian Houle

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Informal transportation services constitute the primary form of public transport in the Global South. Here, the authors analyze the structure of route networks in cities across the globe, showing how informal routes self-organize into consistent line services that often outperform centralized services in the Global North, exhibiting fewer detours and comparable interconnectivity.

    • Kush Mohan Mittal
    • , Marc Timme
    •  & Malte Schröder

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    The African continent demonstrated decisive leadership throughout its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, leveraging lessons learned from previous outbreaks and acting quickly to limit the impact of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. We propose a framework to build on these successes that calls for greater collaboration between African leaders, and greater inclusion of African voices in the global health ecosystem.

    • Nicaise Ndembi
    • , Aggrey Aluso
    •  & Jean Kaseya

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Wearable devices can provide personalised medicine at the point of need, potentially increasing access to health services and therefore improving health equity. Here the authors discuss their experiences developing wearable devices for vulnerable patient populations, including neonates and pregnant individuals.

    • Jessica R. Walter
    • , Shuai Xu
    •  & John A. Rogers

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    We examine the call for decolonising academic disciplines, and the extent which this applies to engineering. We argue that anticolonial endeavours should systematically recognise colonial legacy in contemporary science and technology, and reframe technological innovation in light of neocolonial extraction and exploitation.

    • Srinjoy Mitra
    • , Suvobrata Sarkar
    •  & Agomoni Ganguli-Mitra

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Drawing on perspectives from West and Southern Africa, this Comment critically examines the current state of neuroscience progress in Africa, describing the unique landscape and ongoing challenges as embedded within wider socio-political realities. Distinct research opportunities in the African context are explored to include genetic and bio-diversity, multilingual and multicultural populations, life-course development, clinical neuroscience and neuropsychology, with applications to machine learning models, in light of complex post-colonial legacies that often impede research progress. Key determinants needed to accelerate African neuroscience are then discussed, as well as cautionary underpinnings that together create an equitable neuroscience framework.

    • Sahba Besharati
    •  & Rufus Akinyemi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electrified groundwater irrigation is a major driver of India’s agricultural growth. India refocussed rural electrification towards household electrification in early 2000s in detriment of groundwater irrigation electrification, the authors find.

    • Sudatta Ray
    •  & Hemant K. Pullabhotla

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Li and colleagues develop a dual water-electricity cooperation (DWEC) framework that combines water and electricity trading to meet the often-conflicting demands of participating countries in the Lancang-Mekong river basin. They discuss the potential of this framework for application in other transboundary river systems.

    • Bingyao Zhang
    • , Yu Li
    •  & Ximing Cai

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis (RR-TB) requires longer, more toxic therapy than rifampicin-sensitive disease and is associated with a higher occurrence of long-term sequelae. In this mathematical modeling study, the authors estimate that incident RR-TB in 2020 will be responsible for ~6.9 million disability-adjusted life years; 44% due to post-tuberculosis sequelae.

    • Nicolas A. Menzies
    • , Brian W. Allwood
    •  & Ted Cohen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recent estimates of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) intake are generally unavailable. Here the authors show a global SSBs intake of 2.7 servings/week in 2018 in adults (range: 0.7 South Asia, 7.8 Latin America/Caribbean); intakes were higher among males, younger, more educated, and urban adults.

    • Laura Lara-Castor
    • , Renata Micha
    •  & Rubina Hakeem

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The 21st Century has witnessed a series of global food crises, though little is known about how rising food prices affect child nutrition. The authors show that increases in the real price of food elevate the risk of a child being wasted, which in turn poses a serious risk for their survival.

    • Derek Headey
    •  & Marie Ruel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Control of rabies in Africa through mass vaccination of dogs may be compromised by cross-border transmission. Here, the authors use mathematical modelling and a benefit-cost analysis to demonstrate that coordinating rabies control measures across borders could lead to the elimination of dog rabies in Africa.

    • A. Bucher
    • , A. Dimov
    •  & J. Zinsstag

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Solar-powered standalone systems drastically lower the cost of electrifying sub-Saharan Africa. Household electrification can be provided at 7c USD per person per day on average. To reflect inter- and intra-country variance, policymakers should consider electrification cost curves.

    • Florian Egli
    • , Churchill Agutu
    •  & Tobias S. Schmidt

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Malaria mosquitoes use their ears to detect the flight tones of mating partners in the swarm as part of the courtship ritual. Here, the authors describe the auditory role of octopamine as a modulator of auditory plasticity in malaria mosquitoes and identify the main receptors involved in this process.

    • Marcos Georgiades
    • , Alexandros Alampounti
    •  & Marta Andrés

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Potential rooftop photovoltaic in China affords 4 billion tons of carbon mitigation in 2020 under ideal assumptions, equal to 70% of China’s carbon emissions from electricity and heat. Yet most cities have exploited the potential to a limited degree.

    • Zhixin Zhang
    • , Min Chen
    •  & Jinyue Yan

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    The rapid expansion and globalization of the seaweed production industry, combined with rising seawater temperatures and coastal eutrophication, has led to an increase in infectious diseases and pest outbreaks. Here, we propose a novel Progressive Management Pathway for improving Seaweed Biosecurity.

    • Elizabeth J. Cottier-Cook
    • , Jennefe P. Cabarubias
    •  & Melba G. Bondad-Reantaso

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Flooding is a pervasive natural hazard, with new research demonstrating that more than one in five people around the world live in areas directly exposed to 1-in-100 year flood risk. Exposure to such flood risk is particularly concentrated amongst lower income households worldwide.

    • Thomas K. J. McDermott

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Floods are most devastating for those who can least afford to be hit. Globally, 1.8 billion people face high flood risks; 89% of them live in developing countries; 170 million of them live in extreme poverty making them most vulnerable.

    • Jun Rentschler
    • , Melda Salhab
    •  & Bramka Arga Jafino

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Dog vaccination is an effective rabies prevention measure, but widespread vaccination campaigns are challenging in settings like India with large free-roaming dog populations. Here, the authors describe a One Health campaign in Goa state which led to a large reduction of cases in dogs and elimination in humans.

    • A. D. Gibson
    • , G. Yale
    •  & R. J. Mellanby

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Economic shocks may lead to food insecurity and therefore acute child malnutrition (wasting). Here, the authors use data from Demographic Health Surveys to estimate impacts of past economic shocks on wasting and project possible effects of shocks related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

    • Derek D. Headey
    •  & Marie T. Ruel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Gambiense human African trypanosomiasis has been targeted for elimination of transmission by 2030. Here, the authors assess the cost-effectiveness of elimination strategies in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and find that those which lead to elimination of transmission might also be considered cost-effective by conventional thresholds.

    • Marina Antillon
    • , Ching-I Huang
    •  & Fabrizio Tediosi

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Ensuring international benefit-sharing from sequence data without jeopardising open sharing is a major obstacle for the Convention on Biological Diversity and other UN negotiations. Here, the authors propose a solution to address the concerns of both developing countries and life scientists.

    • Amber Hartman Scholz
    • , Jens Freitag
    •  & Jörg Overmann

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    While the technological revolution is accelerating, digital poverty is undermining the Sustainable Development Goals. This article introduces a justice-oriented digital framework which considers how fair access to digital capabilities, commodities, infrastructure, and governance can reduce global inequality and advance the SDGs.

    • Katriona O’Sullivan
    • , Serena Clark
    •  & Malcolm MacLachlan

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