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 …
FOR THE first time in a decade, developing countries have received more money from developed countries than they returned as interest on debt. But losses caused by declining terms of trade continued to offset the gains in aid. The United Nations secretary general's report, however, cautions this turnaround in resource …
What is the significant insight that you have gleaned over your years in environmental politics? We've realised the circle of dependency that exists between the government -- with its five-year cycle of being in power -- and industry -- with its 20-30 year cycle of investment planning. Industrialised countries depend …
AT THE Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change meeting in Harare in November, efforts were made to reorganise its bureauto ensure sgientists from the developing world are better represented. But IPCC secretary N Sundararaman said finding scientists from developing countries was difficult and some governments were reluctant to allow scientists to …
THE UNCED conference at Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and its immediate aftermath disappointed everyone involved in sustainable development. During the March 1992 PrepCom for UNCED, US$125 billion was tabled as the net annual flow of new and additional financial support to developing countries to spark a $600-billion annual effort …
THE GLOBAL Environmental Facility of UNEP, UNDP and the World Bank, administered by the latter and designated as an interim fund under the climate and biodiversity conventions'. has become the most contentious issue in international environmental negotiations, pushing issues of climate change and biodiversity into the background. At a recent …
THE DREAM of environmentalists to mpnitor the world's natural resources was boosted with the establishment of the UN Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD), which will analyse the progress of agreements reached at the Earth Summit. CSD was meant to increase the accountability of governments concerning environmental policy. Some developing countries …
AT THE November meeting of the International Tropical Timber Organisation'(ITTO), some industrialised countries proposed labelling imported timber according to region of origin and whether it came from a "sustainably logged" forest. Timber from "unsustainably logged" forests would be banned by the consumer countries. The proposal was not accepted because of …
THE RIO summit in June 1992 has turned out to be a midsummer night's dream. Only five countries -Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Finland - have fulfilled in the past the promised inter- national goal that a country's overseas aid should be equal to 0.7 per cent of its …
WRITING of the 1919 Treaty of PeaceJohn Maynard Keynes saidThe proceedings... all had this air of extraordinary importance and unimportance at the same time. The decisions seemed charged with consequences to the future of human society; yet the air whispered that the word was not flesh, that it was futile.The …
GROWING awareness over the last decade of the negative consequences of industrialisation in the South, led to many forms of cooperation between environmental organisations in the North and the South, including campaigns against large- scale World Bank projects and destruction of rain forests in Latin America. But Northern NGOs have …
Environmental space may be defined as the total quantity of natural resources that can be used on a sustainable basis, for example, the total quantity of carbon dioxide that can be released into the air by humans without damaging atmospheric processes like the global climate. To ensure equitable distribution of …
• 1992 was the year of environment. More than 100 heads of state and government gathered at Rio to discuss the health of the planet. But the conference refusea to look at underlying issues -lack of global democracy at one level and local democracy on the other -that favour exploitative …
THE end of 1992, there was no dearth of Western libk vwring to the view that sovereignty, as a concept mming the interpersonal behaviour of nations, must be limited. For instance, Jan Tinbergen, the eminent Dutch nowist who won the world's first Nobel Prize for economists and who has been …
BETWEEN 1986 and 1990, the total consumption of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) by industrialised countries dropped from 971,342 tonnes to 636,588 tonnes -- a fall of 34 per cent. The industrialised countries' halon consumption, too, has fallen from 198,609 tonnes to 151,700 tonnes. Meanwhile, the CFC consumption of developing countries, which …
A STUDY has shown community institutions can be an effective way to regulate the use of natural resources. The indigenous knowledge, attitudes and practices of a people have great potential in promoting the management of resources around them. The study by Wendelin Mlenge, project manager for the HASHI project in …
BIOTECHNOLOGY means a lot of things to different people. The new and the traditional coexist and reinforce each other within biotechnology -- now an established and highly interdisciplinary applied field. However, it symbolises big money, in terms of new industries, agricultural practices, patents and research grants. For scientists and academics, …
"THE CLIMATE negotiations have just begun. And it is important that developing countries pay heed to them. What was signed in Rio was simply a framework convention. It just says that all nations should protect the world"s atmosphere. What actions we need to take, which will greatly affect how we …
The UN's World Investment Report 1992 indicates the data available on the geographical distribution of R&D; efforts of MNCs shows a growing trend towards internationalisation. A survey of 33 major firms shows 18 per cent of all their R&D; employees in 1989 were employed in affiliates abroad. Some leading European …
CONTRARY to what environmentalists may think, a prestigious United Nations report -- the World Investment Report (WIR), 1992 -- has virtually given a clean chit to multinational corporations (MNCs). It says there is very little evidence to show that MNCs shift environmentally dangerous industries to poor countries. But not all …
NESTLE seems to have perfected the fine art of profiting at another's expense. Its infant food substitutes have been a known cause of diarrhoea and death among year-old babies. Now, the company claims to have developed a carob-based baby food which, it says, helps remove diarrhoea-causing bacteria from the intestines. …
