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WANTED A SECOND 'DELIVERING AS ONE' INITIATIVE

The international discourse on foreign aid has in recent years been dominated by the theme of harmonization and coordination of aid efforts sometimes also referred to as 'Delivering as One'.

This discourse has shown that nationalism is still deeply entrenched in industrial countries and affects even matters like foreign aid procedures; and this, although the current multiplicity of donor approaches has since long been recognized as detrimental to aid efficiency and effectiveness. It allows global poverty with all its ill-effects to persist, including ill-effects of often worldwide reach. Neither donors nor recipient countries really benefit from the present diversity of delivery, accounting and reporting practices. And yet, even major international conferences such as the 2008 Accra meeting have come and gone - without much noticeable progress towards harmonization. Read more

 

TOWARD A BRIGHTER FUTURE

In a globalized world undergoing rapid transformation, transatlantic relations are of central importance. However, the transatlantic cooperation needs to be renewed and the common agenda reformulated in the light of current global challenges, write Gunilla Carlson and Jim Kolbe, Co-Chairs of the Transatlantic Taskforce on Development. Read more

 

THE GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL

When UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for a Green New Deal at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Poznañ last December, the uninitiated thought he was presenting a new concept that would work for all nations, rich as well as poor, in the face of both climate change and the global economy.

However, a walk down the memory lane would reveal that Mark Hertsgaard, an independent U.S. journalist, was (probably!) the first to plead for what he called a Global Green Deal: a programme to renovate our civilization environmentally from top to bottom in rich and poor countries alike. In an article for the Time Special Earthday 2000 Edition, he wrote: "Making use of both market incentives and government leadership, a 21st century Global Green Deal would do for environmental technologies what government and industry have recently done so well for computer and Internet technologies: launch their commercial takeoff."  Read more

 

RENEWABLES GO GLOBAL

Renewables have indeed gone global. The newly-founded world-organisation International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) already represents over two and a half billion people, over a third of the global population. After India joined IRENA as its 76th member, the number of people living in its member states and thus directly impacted by the agency rose to more than 2.5 billion. Read more