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 …
"A plant in the backyard has no value," says an Indian proverb. This attitude, which has been the bane of Indian society -- and that of the nations of the South -- repeatedly tends to overlook the traditional in pursuit of the modern. These societies often forget that modern technology, …
LEADERS of developing countries today find in environment a cause of great worldwide concern -- a concern that is steadily growing in their own countries and one that already has deep roots in the rich North. Political leaders from the South, who attended the recent 10th summit of the Non-Aligned …
A MAJOR preoccupation of developing countries that have undergone the colonial experience is to avoid, at any cost, the substitution of political colonialism with economic colonialism. An important and influential theoretico-ideological position of the post-colonial era has been the "dependency theory" of social scientists Immanuel Wallerstein and Andre Gunder-Frank, that …
A COUNTRY'S economic strength influences its health level, which, in turn, is correlated with its average income level. When the economy grows, the people's health should also improve. The gross domestic product (GDP) of the industrialised West grew five-fold between 1960 and 1980. Meanwhile, male life expectancy increased by 2.7 …
EFFORTS of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to create a gene bank appear to have stalled barely a year after steps were taken to start it. The proposal to start the gene bank was accepted at the 1990 Male meeting of SAARC and was taken up at …
I HAVE been uncomfortable with the "transfer of technology" demands of developing countries during their environmental dialogue with the North. Let me explain: We do stress, based on irrefutable data, that the North is responsible for the bulk of the perturbation that human beings have caused to the properties of …
PRODDED by fears that the ozone layer is being depleted at a much faster rate than reported initially, representatives of 56 countries met in Geneva recently and largely agreed on a proposal to bring forward the date for phasing out use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) from 2000 to the end of …
A US high-level military planning group has issued a report strongly recommending the development of nuclear weapons for specific use against Third World enemies. Some of the proposed weapons include an electromagnetic pulse bomb that can knock out enemy communications and other electronic gear at low risk to human beings …
AGRIDYNE Technologies, a US biotechnology company, recently announced a major project involving the genetic-engineering of pyrethrins, an insecticidal compound derived from the pyrethrum flower ( Chrysanthemum cinerariaefolium). The US $3 million, three-year project is expected to produce unlimited" supplies of pyrethrin, an environmentally friendly insecticide, in the laboratory. According to …
In this issue, we carry two reports: One on the subject of human rights suppression and environmental degradation, and the other on trade bans against environmentally harmful products. Both trade and human rights are being used today as sticks to beat the South. Northern NGOs have repeatedly raised these issues …
WITH THE biodiversity and climate treaties fully negotiated and ready for signature, it was obvious that the Rio conference would have had to confront the contentious issue of the forest convention proposed by the North. A last-minute insertion of fresh sentences into the text of the Agenda 21 -- the …
• SEVERAL northern governments and large northern NGOs have proposed the idea of a global forest convention or agreement. We wish to place on record our strong and total opposition to this idea. We believe this step will be anti-poor, lead to highly bureaucratic and ecologically unsound forest practices, and …
AT RIO, while the forest convention was being resisted tooth and nail by developing countries, yet another idea was being floated. This was to establish a World Commission on Forests on the lines of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC). This would help broaden the scientific consensus and sort …
The forest convention got its impetus from a group of northern NGOs who have consistently pushed and prodded their governments to support this idea. The largest groups have been the Sierra Club and the National Audubon Society in the US and the Friends of the Earth (FOE) and the World …
THE WORLDWIDE consciousness about environment is now demanding action. And Rio was an important staging post in this global effort to set up a framework for future action. In many ways, the framework set up in Rio is extremely inimical to the long-term interests of the South and goes counter …
WESTERN NGOs and media built up certain myths about the South in the run-up to Rio. These perceptions then clouded the visions of numerous Northern negotiators. Myth: Rio is suffering from a North-South conflict and this will contribute to its failure. Reality: In reality, the North-South conflict was secondary to …
• THIS IS how the paragraph in Agenda 21 text came to Rio: "To facilitate and support the effective implementation of the non-legally binding authoritative statement of principles for a global consensus on the management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests, adopted by the UNCED, and on …
June 1 Confusion reigns on the eve of the 12-day summit -- the biggest gathering of world leaders ever. Delegates start arriving to a spruced up city. A 35,000 strong security force has swept the city clean of the beggars, urchins and vendors who swarm the streets. Rio, possibly the …
THE RECENTLY-concluded Rio conference commemorated the 20th anniversary of the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment held at Stockholm. The Stockholm Conference was a watershed in the international environmenial movement - it put environmental issues on the international agenda for the first time. It was Sweden which had first …
