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Sustainable Futures

Blog Header: Sustainable Futures. Debates to shape a collaborative multipolar world

  • Private Sector Mobilisation: Are We Missing the Bigger Picture?

    Event venue for the 2026 IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings in Thailand, set against a modern city skyline.
    © World Bank Photo Collection / Flickr

    This week, the international development community will gather in Bangkok for the Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Amid pressing development needs and empty public purses, the Governors of the World Bank will discuss (one time more) how to mobilise private capital at scale, a pledge the international community has made but failed to realise. Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) have been the predominant mobilisers of financial resources, accounting for 71% of the total mobilised private finance, with current mobilisation figures standing at approximately $108 billion per annum. However, this is only a tiny fraction of the private investment needed to achieve development and climate goals, highlighting the urgent need for a change in mobilisation approaches. (mehr …)

  • Three stops, three regimes: Reflections on a summer in global environmental governance

    People with rolling suitcases walk through a large airport terminal, silhouetted against floor-to-ceiling windows. The scene conveys travel, mobility, and international movement.
    Image by Rudy and Peter Skitterians from Pixabay

    What can attending negotiations on biodiversity, land and climate tell us about the changing politics of global environmental governance? Reflections from Nairobi, Ulaanbaatar, Beijing and Shanghai. (mehr …)

  • BRICS in Delhi: Multipolarity in Practice and Challenges for Europe

    Group photo of participants at a BRICS Summit. © MEAphotogallery on Flickr, CC BY 4.0, cropped by IDOS.

    The BRICS group gets limited attention in Europe.  Indeed, the BRICS member countries are “non-Western”, but not a coherent block. It is exactly for this reason, that it merits close attention. The BRICS+ as a group are economically fast catching up with the G7 in global weight – on purchasing power parity, BRICS+ has already overtaken the G7.  Starting as an investment banker’s idea, the countries whose initials stand for BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and later also South Africa – have since taken more members to their informal club, inter alia Iran, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia. (mehr …)

  • The fence isn’t the problem – What Ceuta and Melilla Really Reveal

    Harbor in Ceuta with boats, docked ships, waterfront buildings, and surrounding hills.
    ©ramonramon via Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

    Images of people scaling the fence into Ceuta and Melilla fuel the perception of a loss of control. Yet these people cannot simply travel on to the rest of the EU, nor are its external borders the real threat. Rather, the threats lie in the scapegoating and the knee-jerk call for isolation. Both obscure the view of what could be possible: partnership on equal terms to create opportunities for local youth, regulated entry coupled with justified deportation, and honest information.  (mehr …)

  • Reflections from Bonn’s Mid-Year Climate Talks: Implementation, Trade, and Missed Synergies

    © UN Climate Change (UNFCCC) | Lara Murillo, Flickr, CC BY 4.0

    IDOS Expert Niklas Wagner has followed the Bonn Climate Conference SB 64 in Bonn and shares his reflections on deliberation, finance, the new climate and trade dialogue, and missed synergies between the Rio Conventions.

    (mehr …)