This year’s G20 summit took place this weekend in Rome and – as it is always the case when the G20 meets in a country where protests are not suppressed – thousands of protestors used this occasion to express their opposition to the supposedly neoliberal agenda of the G20 and the human rights violations perpetrated…
By Nimrod Oren on Pixabay
Club governance formats such as the G20 and G7 have an important role to play in raising the level of ambition to effectively combat climate change and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This was the key message that came out of a virtual expert conference organised by the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) in cooperation with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Indonesia, and the Sustainable Development Solutions Network Europe (SDSN Europe). The conference brought together key experts and policy makers from G7 and G20 countries, assessed the outcomes of the G7 Carbis Bay summit and looked ahead not only to the upcoming G20 summit in Rome but also the G7 and G20 presidencies in 2022 chaired by Germany and Indonesia respectively.
As the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow approaches (31 October to 12 November 2021), Mexico’s Congress discusses a controversial proposal to modify the Constitution in the electricity sector. This legislative change would give primacy to the Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE), a state-owned company, effectively crowding out private producers and eliminating independent regulators. …
With the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban only a few weeks after the withdrawal of international troops, the mission failed to leave behind stable functioning state structures which would be resilient enough to withstand military pressure from the Taliban, care for the population and be respected by it.
Germany is the world’s second largest development donor after the US, and the European Union’s (EU) largest aid provider. And yet its financial heft is not commensurate with its positioning on development in the EU. For the second time, Germany reached the aid target of 0.7 percent of gross national income (GNI) in 2020 (the first being in 2016, albeit in part due to its response to the high influx of refugees into the country), making significant contributions to the global pandemic response, including through the EU, COVAX, and the WHO. With a new government taking over the helm of the country and building on its financial firepower, Germany now has the opportunity to fully embrace a leadership role in the EU as an agenda-setter in development, driving forward innovative ideas, rather than as a mere broker.
