Trump Tech Big Bro: Monopoly Is Best

Trump’s billionaire cronies want more monopoly profits, not competition. With more policies crafted for them, wealth concentration is set to become greater than ever.

Financing for Whom? Trials & Tribulations from the Fourth Financing for Development in Seville

The Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) took place in Seville, Spain from 30th June to 3rd July amidst intensifying attacks on multilateralism, unprecedented cuts to global aid and development financing, and regression of decades of progress in the fight against poverty.

NATO’s Trillion-dollar Gamble: The Dangers of Defence Without Accountability

Donald Trump’s bullying tactics ahead of NATO’s annual summit, held in The Hague in June, worked spectacularly. By threatening to redefine NATO’s article 5 – the collective defence provision that has anchored western security since 1949 – Trump won commitments from NATO allies to almost triple their defence spending to five per cent of GDP by 2035. European defence budgets will balloon from around US$500 billion to over US$1 trillion annually, essentially matching US spending levels.

Will the FfD4 Sevilla Commitment Ever be Followed up?

The extensive plan of action adopted at the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4), held recently in Sevilla, Spain (30 June - 3 July), triggers the question: Where will the money come from?

UN Reform: Is it Time to Renew the Idea of Clustering the Major Environmental Agreements?

“Never let a good crisis go to waste.” Winston Churchill’s famous maxim feels very relevant today, when multilateralism and many environmental causes seem to be in retreat. We now face a triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution.

UN Funding Crisis Threatens Work of Human Rights Council

The United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) has expressed concern at the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights’ announcement that certain activities mandated by the council cannot be delivered due to a lack of funding. The council has sought clarity on why certain activities had been singled out.

Seychelles’ Path to Macroeconomic Stability and Resilience

Seychelles—a nation of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean—today enjoys a comparatively high degree of economic stability. Inflation is below 2 percent, real GDP has largely recovered from the pandemic, public debt is on course to reach the government’s target of less than 50 percent of GDP before 2030, and per capita income is the highest in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Preventing Pandemics Needs Every Tool in the Toolbox – Including Animal Vaccines

Just five years on from the Covid-19 pandemic, another animal-borne disease is mutating and spreading across borders and species. Avian influenza has already resulted in the loss of more than 630 million birds in the last 20 years. And new figures from the inaugural State of the World’s Animal Health report find that the number of reported outbreaks in mammals, including cattle, sheep and cats, doubled last year compared to 2023.

Genocide Made Invisible

Whatever the outcomes of Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House on Monday and the latest scenario for a ceasefire in Gaza, a bilateral policy of genocide has united the Israeli and U.S. governments in a pact of literally breath-taking cruelty.

World Bank’s IFC Finally Adopts Remedial Action Framework

The World Bank’s private sector arm has raised the bar — and others may follow. On April 15, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) became the first development finance institution to adopt a formal remedy policy, publishing its Remedial Action Framework (RAF) to address environmental and social harm caused by IFC-supported investment projects.

Bangladesh’s Democratic Promise Hangs in the Balance

When Bangladesh’s streets erupted in protest in mid-2024, few could have predicted how swiftly Sheikh Hasina’s regime would crumble. The ousting of the prime minister last August, after years of mounting authoritarianism and growing discontent, was heralded as a historic opportunity for democratic renewal. Almost a year on, the question remains whether Bangladesh is genuinely evolving towards democracy, or if one form of repression is replacing another.

How Global Fund is Saving Lives from Malaria, TB, & HIV across Africa

In Gabú, Guinea-Bissau, a grandmother named N’beta hesitated. Her six-month-old grandson, Seco, was healthy, so why give him medicine? But community health workers Jamilia and Amadu gently explained that the medicine wasn’t for illness, but for protection. It was part of a seasonal malaria chemoprevention campaign designed to protect children during the worst malaria transmission months — the rainy season.

FfD4 at Sevilla Plants the Seeds of Debtor Unity

UN Member States adopted the ‘Compromiso de Sevilla’ at the Fourth Financing for Development Forum (FfD4) which concluded July 3-- the culmination of months of contentious negotiations that pitted wealthy nations against the developing world in competing visions for reform of the global economic architecture.

The Silencing of Hong Kong

Joshua Wong sits in a maximum-security prison cell, knowing the Hong Kong authorities are determined to silence him forever. On 6 June, police arrived at Stanley Prison bringing fresh charges that could see the high-profile democracy campaigner imprisoned for life. This is the reality of Hong Kong: even when behind bars, activists can be considered too dangerous ever to be freed.

Lessons from South Africa on Monitoring the Impact of Invasive Trees on Water Resources

Concerns about the impacts of invasive species is not new; it dates to the 19th century. The term was popularized in Charles Elton’s 1958 book “The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants”. However, the concept gained significant attention in the 1990s and early 2000s as academic interest surged. This led to an increase in publications by invasion biologists.

UN80: Alternative Reform Pathways — Fiscal Prudence, Relocation Realities, & Underutilized Charter Mechanisms

Recent proposals to relocate UN operations to lower-cost duty stations ignore demonstrable economic patterns. Empirical evidence suggests that establishing UN hubs often triggers localized inflation, negating projected savings.

Democracy under Attack: Why the World Needs a New UN Special Rapporteur

When tanks rolled through Myanmar’s streets in 2021, civil society groups worldwide sounded the alarm. When Viktor Orbán systematically dismantled Hungary’s free press, democracy activists demanded international action. And as authoritarianism returns to Tanzania ahead of elections, it’s once again civil society calling for democratic freedoms to be respected.

From Parliaments to the G20: A Call to Champion Women’s Sexual & Reproductive Health & Rights

About 21 million adolescent girls get pregnant annually in low- and middle-income countries. Beyond the numbers lie lost futures and deepening cycles of poverty that undermine girls’ education, wellbeing, and, ultimately, national development.

FFD4 Must Deliver for the World’s Most Vulnerable Nations

Five years from the 2030 deadline for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we face a development emergency. The promise to eradicate poverty, combat climate change, and build a sustainable future for all is slipping away. The SDG financing gap has ballooned to over $4 trillion annually—a crisis compounded by declining aid, rising trade barriers, and a fragile global economy.

US Mayors Renew Call for US to Lead World–Back from Nuclear Brink

July 16, 2025, will mark the 80th anniversary of “Trinity,” the first nuclear test detonation, at Alamagordo, New Mexico, and August 6 and 9 will mark the 80th anniversaries of the United States atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Rather than commemorating those somber anniversaries as a grim reminder of the past, this year they serve as a foreboding warning of what may be to come.

As FfD4 Kicks Off in Spain, Global Cooperation Still Matters

As the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) kicks off in Sevilla, Spain, the stakes couldn’t be higher.