Not Yet Curtains for BRICs

With Goldman Sachs folding up its haemorrhaging BRIC fund, is it curtains for the acronym that defined the investment bankers’ fancy for emerging markets? It certainly appears so after China’s stock market crash and a fast slowing economy triggered fears that the dragon will set off the next global recession.

OPINION: Keep Family Farms in Business with Youth Agripreneurs

Finding a way to allow youth to contribute their natural and ample energies to productive causes is increasingly the touchstone issue that will determine future prosperity.

Uruguay Puts High Priority on Renewable Energies

Uruguay is modifying its energy mix with the aim of achieving carbon neutrality by 2030, by means of a strategy that bolsters non-conventional clean energy sources through public-private partnerships and new investment. A majority of this South American country’s energy already comes from renewable sources.

Africa Gears for Infrastructural Boom

The upcoming week for the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA), which runs from November 13-17 in Abidjan, the capital city of Ivory Coast, is set to throw this continent into the full gear of infrastructural boom, development experts here say.

Refugee Crisis May Threaten Development Aid to World’s Poor

As the spreading refugee crisis threatens to destabilize national budgets of donor nations in Western Europe, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Wednesday appealed to the international community not to forsake its longstanding commitment for development assistance to the world’s poorer nations.

Opinion: Economic Slowdown Threatening Progress

Slower economic growth since 2008, and especially with the commodity price collapse since the end of last year, threatens to reverse the exceptional half-decade before the financial crash when growth in the South stayed ahead of the North. From 2002, many developing countries – including some of the poorest– had been growing much faster after a quarter century of stagnation in Africa, for example.

UN Targets “Hidden Source” for Development Funding

The United Nations has estimated a hefty funding requirement of over 3.5 trillion to 5.0 trillion dollars per year for the implementation of its ambitious post-2015 development agenda, including 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), approved by world leaders in September.

World Trade Organization Rules Help to Support Better Public Health

Trade and the multilateral trading system can help in creating a more favourable global environment for public health policies and the implementation of a balanced and effective intellectual property system.

Open Data – Still Closed to Latin American Communities

Open data policies in Latin America have not yet enabled communities to exercise their right to access to information, consultation and participation with regard to mining or infrastructure projects that affect their surroundings and way of life.

Nicaragua’s Interoceanic Canal, a Nightmare for Environmentalists

The international scientific community’s fears about the damage that will be caused by Nicaragua’s future interoceanic canal have been reinforced by the environmental impact assessment, which warns of serious environmental threats posed by the megaproject.

Opinion: The Broken Promises of the Peruvian Development Model

Lima was the host, in October 2015, of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank annual meetings. The two Bretton Woods institutions, criticized for their record of lowering social and environmental conditions, seek to showcase Peru as a success of their neoliberal policies and reforms to the rest of the world.

Brazil’s Megaprojects, a Short-lived Dream

Working as a musician in a military band is the dream of 21-year-old Jackson Coutinho, since hopes that a petrochemical complex would drive the industrialisation of this Brazilian city near Rio de Janeiro have gone up in smoke.

Southeast Asia: How to Make Good Business Out of Doing Good

When his father drove back to pay the 47 Malaysian cents they owed to the food stall they had just left, then nine-year-old Anis Yusal Yusoff, today president and chief executive officer of the Malaysian Institute of Integrity, learned the meaning of standing firm by one’s values.

Cuba’s Extra-Heavy Crude Awaits Technology and Investment

Cuba's oil industry only exploits five percent of the petroleum found in onshore and offshore deposits due to a lack of foreign capital and technology to develop oilfields like Varadero 1000, the country's biggest oil operation until now.

Itaborai, a City of White Elephants and Empty Offices

Itaboraí still recalls its origins as a sprawling city that sprang up along a highway, not far from Rio de Janeiro. But a few years ago big modern buildings began to sprout all over this city in southeast Brazil, whose offices and shops are almost all empty today.

Opinion: TPP is Bad for One’s Health

Reflecting President Barack Obama’s pivot to Asia, the US, Japan and 10 other Pacific Rim nations have inked a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. This is the largest mega free trade agreement (FTA) in two decades and represents 40 per cent of the global economy.

OPINION: Time to Reform the Global Casino

The year 2015 highlights the global shift from traditional money-based, gross domestic product (GDP)-measured economic growth to the new models of sustainable, inclusive human development embodied in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) ratified by its 193 member nations.

Trans-Pacific partnership raise the barriers for the access to affordable medicines

The pharmaceutical industry from the US and Europe scored a major victory with the adoption, in 1994, of a binding agreement on intellectual property (Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights - TRIPS) in the context of the nascent World Trade Organization (WTO).

If the World Trade Organisation did not Exist, it Would Have to be Invented

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is a relative newcomer on the international stage. This year we are marking our 20th anniversary.

Opinion: India’s Compact with Africa

The third India-Africa Forum Summit to be held in New Delhi later this month – in which 54 African countries will participaate – is expected to result in a deeper engagement between India and Africa. This summit takes place at a time when both need each other more than ever before. Both remain bright spots in a bleak and blighted growth landscape. Out of 189 countries, only 63 are expected to grow by 4 per cent and more this year, 36 of which are in Africa. But many countries there are adversely impacted by China's diminishing appetite for commodities and shrinking trade. India is currently one of the fastest growing economies in the world.

Opinion: International Tax Cooperation Crucial for Development

It has become clear that the South, including the least developed countries, has little reason to expect any real progress to the almost half century old commitment to transfer 0.7 percent of developed countries’ income to developing countries. But to add insult to injury, developing countries have, once again, been denied full participation in inter-governmental discussions to enhance overall as well as national tax capacities.