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 …
AGENDA 12 resources to the South have been consistently falling - and there hangs the threat of a further plummet. Even the North- initiated Global Environment Facility has failed to raise the finances agreed upon. The promise by industrialised countries at the Rio summit to provide access to eco-friendly technologies …
ATTENTION was riveted to the proposed new world trade order at the recently concluded 9-day conference of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) in New Delhi. In an unusual display of solidarity, several Third World countries spoke out loud and clear on issues that the …
BICKERING between the North and the South has hindered the phasing out of ozone-depleting substances in the Third World. Although 7 of the 14 members of the Ozone Fund's executive committee are from developing countries, merely 300 tonnes of such substances were phased out in the Third World last year; …
A GLOBAL ban on the export of toxic wastes now means that industrialised nations can no longer get ship them off to the Third World and sit pretty. The loopholes that had rendered the Basel Convention on the "control of trans-boundary movements of hazardous wastes and their disposal" a big …
TRADE, environment and labour standards hold centrestage as the countdown begins for the formal signing ceremony of the Uruguay Round of GATT at Marrakesh, Morocco, on April 15. Under pressure from the industrialised nations, the 118-member nations are planning to take the first step towards a "green GATT" by setting …
OUR attitude to the environment has been like the proverbial free lunch: no immediate costs, and free dessert in the bargain. The punishment is that someone must pay for the degradation, even though it may be diluted over a protracted period of time. The environment was perceived as a free …
THERE are several kinds of toxic wastes that are dumped in Asia. According to Greenpeace, among the noxious wastes that have been shipped to Asia since 1990 are aluminium, cadmium, copper, nickel, tin, zinc, other non-ferrous and ferrous metals, ash and residues, computer scrap, plastic, medical and radioactive wastes. The …
IT IS extremely difficult to measure the scientific performance of a nation, both statistically and in terms of effect. But the few indicators that do exist clearly indicate that developing countries are not performing very well. And a giant like India is performing particularly badly. Between themselves, the USA, the …
Every country should have, the right to protect its people and environment from the negative actions of foreign countries. Based on this basic principle, the German Minister, Klaus Topfer was right in saying in Agra that he will not allow Third World to dump products that under the environment and …
You have talked at length on sustainable development. But your conception of sustainability seems to be incompatible with development. Could you explain? For me, sustainable development is an oxymoron. Development with a capital D has for 40 years meant economic development. But in as much as development means giving a …
• Nicolas Hayek, chairperson of SMH AG, is looking for a partner to introduce the automotive equivalent of the Swatch watch he made famous in the 1980s. Hayek's inexpensive, stylish and "environmentally correct" car is to have low pollution levels, thanks to a hybrid system of battery- and gasoline-powered motors. …
What have been Finland's major environmental concerns? How has your government responded to global environmental issues in general? Finland and other industrialised countries use 80 per cent of the world's resources. We are part of a problem and are responsible for it. That's why our emphasis has always been on …
WITHIN the international community, few people have cared to study the environmental behaviour of Papua New Guinea. Its traditions provide a very instructive experience: they show the world how to deal with the globalisation process of the 21st century, which is slowly eroding the economic sovereignty of Third World nations …
DEVELOPED countries are busy increasing the breadth and depth of the intellectual property regime, using accusations of piracy. Yet, the innovations that multinationals have patented are heavily dependent on the biological and artistic knowledge of the people of the South. The argument that R&D; to isolate, separate and screen genes …
AS THE December 15 deadline of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) approached, European farmers occupied centre stage by protesting various points of the agreement and forcing their respective governments to take uncompromising stands. While European and American agricultural negotiators pledged tariff cuts, farmers …
In fifty developing countries, which contain half of the total human population of the world, there is a heavy dependence on draught animals as an energy source. These animals are used for agriculture operations in 52% of cultivated areas of the world, as well as for hauling 25 million carts. …
ALTHOUGH world trade in forest products continues to be dominated by the industrialised countries, exports of forest products have come to play an important economic role in many developing countries, too. Over the last decade, Brazil, Indonesia and Malaysia have increased their export of forest products at a rate much …
AN UNEQUAL world will always be a divided world -- and a divided world can never be sustainable. During the last year and a half of my "academic existence" in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I had many opportunities -- mainly through the Coolidge Centre for Environmental Leadership -- to speak to various …
CITIZENS' groups have flayed the World Bank's (WB's) new information policy -- Expanding Access to Bank Information (EABI) -- for keeping information in and people out. In a desperate attempt to shore up its sinking image and secure a $18 billion capital replenishment, WB had recently cobbled together the information …
THE EXECUTIVE committee of the Ozone Fund -- an international fund instituted to replace ozone-depleting substances (ODS) -- has rejected India's request for a $2 billion grant to replace these substances by 2010. Northern donor countries felt India's plan lacked detailed information and also projected a ten-fold increase in ODS …
