NextBillion - A WDI Publication

We tallied the votes in NextBillion’s “Most Influential Articles of the Year” contest — an annual tradition since 2012.

The three winners are listed below.

Congratulations to the winners and other contestants in this year’s contest, whose insights have clearly resonated with our readers this past year. And thank you to everyone who voted, and everyone who read and wrote for NextBillion in 2025.

Best wishes for the new year!

First Place

Connected Power: Ensuring Africa is Not Left in the Dark — or Offline

By Ravi Suchak at Helios Towers

Sub-Saharan Africa has both the highest energy access and digital connectivity gaps in the world. As Ravi Suchak explains, this is due not to a lack of demand, but to fundamental infrastructure barriers: Telecom towers and mobile networks require a reliable power supply, which is often absent or prohibitively expensive in rural areas, and electricity providers need consistent demand to de-risk rural energy investments.

He explores a solution that addresses both of these needs: “connected power,” a development approach that aligns energy and telecom infrastructure by positioning telecom towers as anchor customers for electrification projects.

Second Place

To Change the World, Change Your Economics: How Degrowth Can Shrink Overconsumption in the Global North While Allowing the Global South to Grow

By Matt Orsagh and Steve Rocco at the Arketa Institute for Post-Growth Finance

The global economy largely operates under a neoclassical economic structure, which emphasizes a reliance on markets, a deference to the private sector and a focus on constant growth.

But according to Matt Orsagh and Steve Rocco, this structure has a fatal flaw: It operates on a planet with finite resources and limited places to put our waste, but assumes that economic growth can go on forever.

They argue that the world needs a new form of economics that reflects our environmental realities, one focused on “degrowth” — an effort to equitably downscale production and consumption in the Global North, without putting undue restrictions on the development of the Global South.

Third Place

When AI Gets It Wrong: Lessons from a Women-Centered Design Experiment Highlight the Need for Inclusive GPTs

By Koheun Lee at CARE’s Strive Women program

In emerging markets, women entrepreneurs continue to face systemic barriers to financial inclusion.

And as Koheun Lee explains, ChatGPT and other AI models sometimes contribute to this exclusion, reinforcing societal biases that limit women’s potential for business growth and long-term financial health.

She shares insights from CARE’s attempt to build a women-centered design GPT — and proposes some practical steps AI users can take to mitigate bias against women when working with mainstream GPTs.

Photo credits: Shutter2U, jbdodane, robert6666, Media Lens King