The IMF’s April 2025 Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa presents a clear warning: regional growth is slowing, debt pressures are mounting, and donor assistance is declining. Yet the report outlines critical opportunities particularly in domestic revenue mobilization, structural reform, and private sector activation that can shape a more resilient …
This new United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) publication examines five biodiversity governance models that have helped conserve India's natural landscape. This publication examines five biodiversity governance models that have helped conserve India’s natural landscape. It presents salient features of these models and explores their effectiveness in conserving biodiversity, providing community …
The ESCAP/UNISDR Asia-Pacific Disaster Report 2012, Reducing Vulnerability and Exposure to Disasters provides an analysis of the impact of disasters on Asian and Pacific countries between 1970 to 2011, and discusses the twin challenge faced by the region of increasing exposure of its people and economic assets, and heightened vulnerabilities …
With the Convention on Biological Diversity's 11th Conference of the Parties to take place in Hyderabad, this article points out that the treaty's implementation the world over has lacked resolve. India is no exception, with a great gap between the impression given by reports and the reality on the ground.
To attract and sustain funding, REDD+ finance must operate within a governance framework capable of demonstrating compliance with social, environmental and governance safeguards. REDD+ must also be competitive in terms of risk and return, which is currently not the case. Forests are seen as a challenging environment fraught with regulatory …
This study, commissioned by the APEC Policy Support Unit (PSU), aims to complement APEC’s ongoing work in the area by mapping out and understanding the current food security needs and priorities of each member economy, and the policy environment to assure food security. It is only by knowing what is …
This new report by MHHDC addresses governance from the point of view of empowerment. It analyses governance of political, economic, and social institutions from the perspective of how people are being empowered in South Asia. This report addresses governance from the point of view of empowerment. It analyses governance of …
Climate change adaptation is an increasingly important field and will involve a range of actors from national governments to private companies, communities and households. There is a growing policy discourse supporting the involvement of the private sector in adaptation, however there is little empirical examination to show how the sector …
The Panchayati Raj System of Haryana that had been created by the Haryana Panchayati Raj Act (1994) creates an illusion that it is Gram Panchayat centric. The Act had given to it almost all the 29 subjects which had been listed in the 11th Schedule of the Indian constitution.
The Pink City is now in the midst of an unprecedented level of futuristic infrastructural initiatives, making it not only a tourist’s delight but also an example of urban governance.
As cities are growing in terms of population and physical size, their contributions to national GDP are also increasing due to increased economic activities in urban areas. Now in many countries the contribution of cities to national GDP is 80 percent or more of the total GDP. With this greater …
The Urban Governance and Infrastructure Improvement Project in Bangladesh responds to the growing need for infrastructure and service delivery for the rapidly increasing urban population in Bangladesh by building the capacity of resource constrained pourashavas (municipalities) to deliver services, and by increasing community participation in decision making and subproject implementation, …
Visits to seven small towns in north India reveal how paucity of funds, slipshod planning and a dearth of capabilities have contributed to poor civic services and inadequate infrastructure. Citizens in some areas have organised themselves into neighbourhood committees to tackle problems that the urban bodies neglect, but this has …
The bazaar or intermediate classes have remained outside the predominant research imagination on urban change. Delhi's wholesale and retail traders, the primary subjects of this paper, are a subset of this bazaar world. This paper uses a case study of the Supreme court ordered sealing drives of 2006-07 to investigate …
While unplanned colonies retain a negative image for most city planners, pragmatic reasons favour their regularisation. A large number of Delhi's residents live in such unauthorised colonies, most of which are now being regularised. But just how many people, and what changes for them through regularisation? This process does not …
Landless dalits and adivasis have occupied parts of a corporate rubber plantation at Chengara in Kerala for five years. Despite being pressurised in various ways, they have held out, sticking to their demand of land for them to pursue livelihoods. None of the agreements so far reached with the state …
This new report published by Asian Development Bank (ADB) presents objective, accurate, and critical analyses of urban water management practices in eight Asian cities over a 10-year period. This report presents case studies on successful Asian water utilities. The case studies provide objective, accurate, and critical analyses of urban water …
Once every two years, IGES releases a white paper focusing on key policy agendas in the Asia-Pacific region. The Fourth IGES White Paper, entitled "Greening Governance in Asia-Pacific" examines innovative approaches to governance and institutions that have emerged from the region and recommends governance arrangements and policy solutions to accelerate …
India claims to be undertaking a thorough transition to low carbon electricity, stepping up renewable energy and energy efficiency efforts. Yet, two puzzling paradoxes weigh upon this dynamic. First, although energy efficiency measures offer high collective returns, at least as high as those for renewable energy, the energy efficiency agenda …
The Center for Study of Science Technology and Policy (CSTEP), a not-for-profit policy research think-tank in Bangalore developed a systems' map to provide a more rigorous grounding for the scenarios. System dynamics techniques were used to understand different aspects in defining the future of India. The systems' analysis constituted several …
The significance of Rio+ 20 does not lie in any document but in the new direction provided to global governance, with Brazil, China and India shaping the global agenda. Not surprisingly, heads of state from the major G7 countries did not participate in the conference. The issue is intensely complex …
