Trade has historically been a geopolitical tool, creating significant economic imbalances in developing countries. However, many countries in East Asia and Latin America have been able to alleviate poverty due to increasing trade. Tackling poverty has proven to be much harder in low income countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America, and their dismal trade performance is one important reason for that. They remain at the margins of world trade and indeed of the world economy. These articles are aimed at informing readers about the complexities of trade and its varying effects on development, with a special focus on the consequences of the global economic crisis, the potential of fair trade and the gender implications of trade policies.
Aborted Fuel Tax Initiative in France: Its Ramifications for Green Growth
Emmanuel Macron was voted to French Presidency in 2017 with the mission of strengthening the integration of the European Union and pursuing economic and ecological reforms. So from the outset, he was set to distinguish himself, not just in Europe but on the world stage, especially after President Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement. So Macron held the summit meeting on `One Planet’ in Paris last December to push for stronger environment and climate policy. He also spoke of the environment when he addressed the Congress in April 2018, stating that “Let us face it: There is no Planet B.”i
Human Trafficking – Hidden in Plain Sight
The media globally tends to have a bias to negative, sensational and headline grabbing stories and events and this certainly applies to reporting related to human trafficking in the third world. With the abundance of stories around sweat shops, massage parlours and organ trafficking networks happening ‘somewhere else’, the West is generally desensitised, lacks empathy and fails to fully appreciate the scale of the problem which sits right under their noses and in plain sight.
BAPA+40: An Opportunity to Reenergize South-South Cooperation
The upcoming conference on the Buenos Aires Plan of Action (BAPA+40), scheduled to take place in the Argentine capital on 20-22 March 2019, ought to be more than just another UN conference where the developing countries assemble to present their demands and seek support from the North.
Ghana’s Contribution to Plastic Waste Can Be Reduced with the Right Investment
Twelve-year-old Naa Adjeley lives in Glefe, a waterlogged area that is one of the biggest slums along the west coast of Accra, Ghana. The sixth grade student, his parents and three siblings use 30 single-use plastic bags per day for breakfast.
‘Men-streaming’ Women’s Economic Empowerment
Most initiatives around Women's Economic Empowerment (WEE) are largely myopic in their approach. Failure to recognise the role of men and masculinities in this context can pose a significant barrier to both women and men's economic well-being.
Restoring Ghana’s Mangroves and Depleted Fish Stock
It was just three and a half years ago that the Sanwoma fishing village, which sits between the sea and the mouth of the Ankobra River on the west coast of Ghana, experienced perpetual flooding that resulted in a loss of property and life.
What the COP24 Needs: A New Emerging Mindset
An alternative framework of international development and new forms of consumption of good/services are implicit in achieving the goals of UN climate conference recently held in Poland.
Of Cockroaches and Humans
Rita Levi-Montalcini, the Italian Nobel laureate honoured for her work in neurobiology, once gave a splendid conference with the title “The imperfect brain”. There she explained that man has a brain that is not used completely, while the reverse is true for the cockroach.
Investors Turn Kenya’s Troublesome Invasive Water Hyacinth into Cheap Fuel
Currently 30 square kilometres of Lake Victoria, which stretches to approximately 375 kilometres and links Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, is covered with the evasive water hyacinth that has paralysed transport in the area.But scientists are harvesting and fermenting the weed, and one intrepid chemistry teacher has built a business out of it.
Canada-China impasse: Law vs power
Henry Kissinger, in his book On China, wrote that Chinese strategists think differently than their Western counterparts because they are used to playing a different board game, weiqi, where the player patiently gains relative advantage through strategic encirclement rather than seek total victory through checkmating the opponent.
Global Anti-Human Trafficking Coalition
Entire human history is one great struggle for freedom. To many, slavery is a synonym for something in the past, for transatlantic slave trade, but, unfortunately, slavery still exists in many different forms.
Taking Away the Ladder
The notion of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and later, South Africa) was concocted by Goldman Sachs’ Jim O’Neill. His 2001 acronym was initially seen as a timely, if not belated acknowledgement of the rise of the South.But if one takes China out of the BRICS, one is left with little more than RIBS. While the RIBS have undoubtedly grown in recent decades, their expansion has been quite uneven and much more modest than China’s, while the post-Soviet Russian economy contracted by half during Boris Yeltsin’s first three years of ‘shock therapy’ during 1992-1994.
Q&A: For Vietnam, the Quality of Economic Growth is Starting to Matter
Vietnam’s shift from a centrally planned to a market economy has transformed the country. And while it is now is one of the most dynamic emerging countries in Southeast Asia, this has sometimes been at the expense of the environment. But the country has begun to prioritise green growth.
Digital Crusaders: Technology Offers Weapons for the Battle Against Corruption
Oleksii Sobolev was a fund manager by day and a pro-democracy protester by night. After work, he would leave his office at Dragon Asset Management in Kiev to join the crowds camped out in Independence Square demanding the resignation of a president they viewed as corrupt.
United Towards Achieving Health For All in Kenya
According to Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, the implementation of UHC is “more a political than an economic challenge”.
Tunisia – the Exception
Eight years have passed since the Arab Spring. In many countries, the uprising was crushed, but in Tunisia democracy gained a foothold. Arbetet Global travelled to the small country town Side Bouzid to find out why.
Pakistan: Food Security and Reducing the Price of Wheat
Robert W. Fogel, the 1993 Nobel Prize Laureate for Economics, through his work on “efficiency wages”, pointed out that hungry and undernourished workers are not as productive as well fed and healthy workers. At the level of an individual firm, it would thus make sense for an employer to pay wages that are high enough to allow workers access to food and other necessities – even if such wages are higher than the going market rate.
Decoding Article 6 of the COP24 Climate Negotiations
It is close to curtain call for the United Nations’ Climate Conference in Katowice, Poland, with ministers from around the world negotiating the text for a “rulebook” to implement the historic 2015 Paris Agreement for climate action. Amidst the various issues being debated, one of the most technical and complicated is Article 6 of the agreement, which focuses on the country plans for climate action.
Costa Rica: First Country to Protect Sustainable Fisheries of Large Pelagics Species
Twelve years ago, in a restaurant in Puntarenas on the pacific coast of Costa Rica, a group of long line fishermen met with three UNDP conservation specialists.
Q&A: Making Green Growth a Success Across the Globe
When the Global Green Growth Institute’s (GGGI) Director General Frank Rijsberman’s son was looking for a job following graduation, he saw that oil companies were paying the highest salaries. But Rijsberman, who has been working in the sustainable development sector for decades, knew better. He told his son that those very same oil companies would soon go broke. And instead advised him to seek employment with renewable energy companies as they would soon be the ones making money.
New Science Shows Climate-Smart Farming is Within Reach
Until the United Nations climate talks in Bonn last year, no clear plan to include agriculture in climate negotiations existed.This was troubling, considering agriculture contributes 19-29% of global greenhouse gases, and changing temperatures are making it harder to farm. This is having an increasingly prominent effect on food security -- hunger levels have now risen for the third year in a row.
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