Brazil, Emerging South-South Donor

The Brazilian government is stepping up South-South aid, to strengthen the South American giant’s status as a donor country and its international clout. It now provides assistance to 65 countries, and its financial aid has grown threefold in the last seven years.

INDIA: Kashmir Missing Its ‘Demographic Dividend’

Kashmir is missing out on a ‘demographic dividend’ and unable to cash in on its youthful population for lack of initiatives from a state government bogged down by a two-decade-old separatist insurgency.

EUROPE-INDIA: Trade Deal Threatens ‘Pharmacy of the Developing World’

Behind closed doors, a trade deal affecting a fifth of the world’s population has been quietly in the works for years.

TRADE: Small Steps towards Emission Reduction Deal

Emerging economies China, South Africa and Brazil have indicated their openness to legally-binding carbon emission reduction targets from 2020 during the United Nations climate change summit in Durban, South Africa.

Emerging Markets Hit Economic Stage Like a Tonne of BRICS

Headlines this week have been saturated with protests against unaffordable food, unfair taxes and unsustainable austerity measures, with one distinct difference setting these stories apart from countless others in recent history.

IBSA: ‘Cash Grants Must Back Food Access’

Studies by the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Academic Forum on food security issues in the three countries suggest that providing food access works best when backed by cash transfers.

Neglected Diseases Group Seeking Child-Friendly AIDS Drugs

A scientific alliance in which developing countries are playing a key role has taken on the challenge of producing paediatric AIDS drugs, an area that is no longer a priority for pharmaceutical companies because mother-to-child transmission of HIV has virtually been eliminated in the industrialised world.

China, India Score With Untied Aid

Armed with a smile, Don Marut exposes the pitfalls of Western aid to developing countries. At a conference here, the Indonesian recalled the story of how 40 electric-train carriages were sent from Germany to his country for a journey to nowhere.

SOUTH AFRICA: Mutually Beneficial Trade With India a Key Objective

South African companies are being urged to use the leverage of its government’s strong political relationship with India to develop new business and investment opportunities.

India Looking to South Africa to Anchor its Involvement in Africa

Some Indians and Africans believe Africa is on the verge of becoming a world economic power, but changes are needed to ensure that the continent takes up its rightful place in the global economy. From India’s perspective, South Africa is vital to its engagement with the continent.

IBSA: Pro-Western Mindset Hinders India-Brazil Pharma Deals

Cooperation between India and Brazil in pharmaceuticals and medical biotechnology has begun to falter, because Indian authorities would rather collaborate with western counterparts than those in developing countries, new research shows.

IBSA: India Stakes Its Bets on Training Africa

Of the various cooperation programmes Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced in Addis Ababa on Tuesday, plans for an India-Africa Virtual University (IAVU) take pride of place.

IBSA: India Cheers for Brazil, South Africa

When it comes to sports, India has always cheered for Brazil in soccer. Now come another three cheers, this time for South Africa in cricket. The reason: a South African named Gary Kirsten who coached India to win the Cricket World Cup this year, for the first time in 28 years.

Europe Holds Tight to IMF Monopoly

Since the election of Camille Gutt of Belgium as the first managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) back in 1946, the Europeans have continued to claim that job as their political and intellectual birthright.

EU Trade Deal with India Stalemated by Threat to Affordable Drugs

More than four years after the EU started negotiating a trade agreement with India, the process has been pushed to a stalemate by the EU’s stubborn insistence in maintaining the so-called data exclusivity clause, despite fierce opposition by Indian government negotiators and Indian and EU non- governmental organisations (NGOs).

DEVELOPMENT: South-South Axis Strengthens

The glass isn’t exactly half-full, but it certainly is not entirely empty either. Within the broad failure of the weeklong Fourth U.N. Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC-IV) in Istanbul that concluded Friday, many delegates are taking heart in a strengthening South-South front that has emerged.

ECONOMY: Malawians Keen to Build Trade Ties with India

Building on historical relationships, Malawians have set their sights on strengthening trade and investment relations with India in sectors as diverse as agriculture, telecommunications and pharmaceuticals.

Q&A: Translating Southern Successes Into LDC Solutions

"In South-South cooperation we are all partners," Josephine Ojiambo, ambassador of Kenya to the U.N. and president of the U.N. General Assembly High-Level Committee on South-South Cooperation, told IPS. "SSC specifically shies away from the donor-client relationship."

Emerging Markets Clash with Anachronistic Institutions

The first weeks of April have witnessed a maelstrom of multilateralism – from the chambers of the annual Spring Meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) here to the round tables of the BRICS summit in the resort island of the Hainan province in China – leaving in its wake a tome of unanswered questions regarding the contours and configurations of the new world order.

G24 Says Rich Nations’ Policies Hurting Developing World

Finance ministers of the G24 group of developing and emerging countries met on the sidelines the World Bank and International Monetary Fund spring meetings here on Thursday, warning against continued risks to their economies, despite largely "strong" growth as the world climbs out of the global financial crisis.

DEVELOPMENT: India and South Africa — Ever-Tightening Relations

Much is made about China’s footprint in Africa but what about its emerging markets rival India?