Democratic governance offers a viable option for developing countries to achieve economic growth and inclusion, yet this doesn’t need to follow the Western model, new research released here this week suggests.
The eighth G20 Summit convened in St. Petersburg on Sept. 5-6, 2013 was dominated by the Syrian crisis, deflecting attention from the mandate of the gathering to serve as the premier forum for international economic coordination.
The Brazilian government projects the cancellation of nearly 900 million dollars in debt owed by a dozen African countries as a gesture of solidarity. But others simply see an aim to expand the economic and political influence of South America’s powerhouse.
As Africa transforms its economy, it will need modern jobs and increased productivity to fight hunger on the continent, African leaders agreed at a two-day summit.
Over the next decade and a half, a major global shift will result in the developing world controlling roughly half of the world’s capital, up from less than a third today.
India’s refusal to grant patent protection for the anti-cancer drug Glivec, developed by Swiss drugmaker Novartis, is a victory for the developing world, which depends on low-cost exports of generic medicines from the Asian giant, said public health specialist Germán Velásquez.
On Tuesday, leaders of five large emerging economies – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, known as the BRICS – will gather in Durban, South Africa to discuss harnessing their formidable resources on behalf of faster development progress in Africa and elsewhere.
The world's 132 developing nations, largely part of the global South, are ascending at a pace “unprecedented in its speed and scale", according to the latest
Human Development Report (HDR) released Thursday by the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP).
Three indigenous communities from the Chilean highlands have just received solar panels, which will be set up and maintained by unlikely solar engineers: five native women who travelled halfway around the world to India and overcame language and other barriers to bring photovoltaic energy to their villages.
There is growing resentment in Africa about the way in which South Africa professes to speak for the rest of the continent in its role as a member of key developing nation blocs, researchers and experts have warned.
Emerging market leaders want their Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa club to be taken seriously, and next month they are expected to make a decisive move towards setting up a development bank to give it real substance and credibility.
As tourism between the emerging nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa starts to increase, South Africa is determined to weld the iron while it is hot.
African nations and other emerging countries are expected to soon outperform the developed world, and South Africa wants to take advantage.
South Africa has denied that it is taking a protectionist stance to protect its own producers against foreign competition, but says it is justified in boosting tariffs where this is allowed under international trade agreements.
"We never used to eat carrots, but now we like them," said Rebeca Soba, admiring her vegetable garden, an island of diversity in the midst of a vast sugarcane plantation.
Vegetable gardening has been introduced at the Capanda Agroindustrial Pole (PAC) as a source of income for local small farmers.
“When someone in Peru sneezes, someone in Brazil catches a cold. When a barrel of oil is produced in Ecuador, a neighbouring country ends up buying it,” says prominent environmentalist Yolanda Kakabadse.
South Africa plans to boost links between Africa and its partners in the Brazil, Russia, India and China alliance at a landmark summit, which will be held in this country in March, Xavier Carim, deputy director general at the Department of Trade and Industry, told IPS.
China’s presence in the leading developing nations alliance of Brazil, Russia, India and China has given the bloc an advantage that another developing nations club, India, Brazil and South Africa, has hitherto been lacking, according to Peter Draper, one of South Africa’s leading experts on international relations and trade.
The five leading developing nations grouped in the BRICS alliance – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – are planning to intensify efforts to collect accurate trade data, so they can get a better picture of trade flows.
Politicians in the leading developing nations have been active in boosting mutual ties, as one way of counterbalancing the influence of the developed world. But the economic success of the Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa and the India, Brazil, and South Africa groupings will depend on the extent to which businesses take advantage of the new opportunities which are being created.
As governments struggle to find ways out of the persistent global financial crisis, Brazil’s development model offers an alternative path to recovery and growth, according to some economists and politicians.