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 …
THREE kilometres off the Hoshangabad-Itarsi road in Madhya Pradesh lies the village of Nitaya. If you can't get hold of a bicycle to get to this village then you'll have to walk down. And that was what I was doing one afternoon in early March. On my way to a …
THAT America rules the waves became abundantly clear to me when I witnessed USA flex its muscles over the entire world at the last session of the Climate Change Convention. The UN was reduced to functioning as an extension of the US state department. And George Bush made a "neutered" …
It was something that nobody would have expected to hear at a global environment conference. The scene: the last preparatory committee meeting for the Rio conference. The US delegation suddenly threw a bombshell. It demanded that all references to control of overconsumption be deleted as these had -very low priority" …
What will UNCED discuss? Theoretically, everything. But it will focus on: Long-term issues like global warming. National resources in the South like tropical rain forests and conservation of biological resources. Mechanisms to transfer aid to the South. Quantum of aid that the South should get to avoid exacerbating global environmental …
Hot aluminium THE aluminium industry is responsible for spewing out two potent greenhouse gases - CFC-14 (tetrafluoromethane) and CFC-116 (hexafluoroethane). In terms of their global warming potential, they are over 8,000 times more effective than carbon dioxide, their atmospheric lifetime being over 10,000 years, according to Dean Abrahamson of the …
PRIME Minister P V Narasimha Rao"s government has taken dramatic steps in less than a year of its existence towards a liberalised regime for the industrial sector. If the new policies indeed lead to increased economic activity, there will be greater pressures operating on the natural environment. Given India"s people, …
HUMANITY never needed a global social contract more than it does today. With the nations of the world jointly facing a global ecological crisis but sharply divided in economic terms, there never was a greater need for humanity to live as one. The forthcoming United Nations Conference on Environment and …
THIS magazine is not the product of a desire to capture a share of the information market. It is the product of a need that we feel within us, of a desire to fill a critical information gap. In the years ahead, India will have to seize every possible opportunity …
The UN sponsored discussions to prepare a global convention on climate began in February in USA. The aim is to prepare a legally binding convention to curb gaseous emissions leading to a much feared climate destabilisation. This convention is being seen as the world's greatest commitment to the environment and …
The mid-canal of Kandy, a 8-km effluent canal that runs through the city, collects massive quantities of domestic, municipal, and agricultural waste products. In this study, 37 samples from canal water and 13 from nearby drinking water wells were analyzed for their total Pb, Cd, V, Fe, and ferrous ion …
Preparations for the Rio+20 United Nations conference on sustainable development have begun, but the first round of preparatory meetings did not address important issues such as sustainable resource use, production and consumption. The Rio+20 United Nations (UN) conference on sustainable development, to take place in Rio de Janeiro in June, …
Is climate change a sustainable development or an environmental challenge? The statement by the Minister for Environment and Forests that the European Union’s aviation tax will be a “deal breaker” is welcome because it reflects one of the policy goals of developing countries, and should elicit widespread support. As far …
The key issue is not defining equity but determining whether climate change is a sustainable development or an environmental challenge A workshop on ‘Equitable access to Sustainable Development’ is to be held in Bonn in May as part of the negotiating process for a new arrangement on global climate change. …
The climate negotiations have finally begun to focus on the criteria for reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases to be agreed by 2015, and new pitfalls have emerged. The continuing negotiations over the past twenty years had a limited agenda. Developing countries were interested in finance and technology for capacity …
It was June of 1992. The location was Rio de Janeiro. The occasion was the world conference on environment and development. A large number of people had come out on the streets. They were protesting the arrival of George Bush senior, the then president of the US. Just before coming …
The significance of Rio + 20 does not lie in any document but in the new direction provided to global governance, whose focus should be on patterns of natural resource use, and not just on natural capital, to ensure human well being. The sequel to the 1992 Earth Summit, once …
The theme of the Rio + 20 Conference was "Green economy in the context of sustainable development and eradication of poverty" and it has not been possible to the find common ground in the serious differences over what constitute economic growth and human wellbeing – ‘the future we want’. Humans …
The new climate regime will lead to commitments only for developing countries, because the United States, which did not ratify the legally binding commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, continues to insist on a framework with nationally determined emissions reductions monitored at the global level. The unresolved issue is multilateral agreement, …
What you measure determines policy Another round of the annual climate meetings is going to take place and the most ambitious outcome will be limited negotiations on some elements, because there is as yet no shared vision of the problem and what to do about it. The negotiations at Doha …
