Articles
Getting the SDG Indicators Right
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With the outcome document for the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) now submitted, the development community turns to the final piece of the SDG agenda: the indicators. While the goals and targets have endured unending negotiations, from the Open Working Group to all UN member states, the underlying indicators have largely remained a big question. It’s now time to turn to that question.
The work and inequality challenge of the digital revolution
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After more than half a decade of debate dominated by the global financial crisis, 2014 saw a departure from this singular focus. Thomas Piketty started a global discussion about historical patterns of inequality and their negative repercussions. And looking to the future rather than back in time, The Second Machine Age by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology showed how the digital revolution is about to transform our economic and social lives. The key problem for policymaking is that these technology-driven developments are certain to further increase existing inequalities and to create new ones at a time when, as Piketty has shown, we have already returned to historically high levels
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UN Post-2015 Development Agenda adopted with closed-door deals
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At about a quarter to seven on the evening of Sunday, Aug. 2, the member states of the United Nations adopted the post-2015 development agenda outcome document, titled “Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda.”
As governments endorsed the 29-page product resulting from almost two years of transparent and relatively democratic negotiations, the final 48 hours had witnessed a very different story, that of a sharp turn towards closed-door consultations and last-minute bargaining chips.
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UN Committee passes first ever debt restructuring principles
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Just ten days after the UN’s International Conference on Financing for Development, and just in time for the endorsement of the new sustainable development agenda, a UN Committee has agreed on a set of principles to guide further sovereign debt restructuring processes. The new UN principles were inspired by the devastating bank bailouts in Greece, and by the vulture fund lawsuits that Argentina faced at US courts. They build on preparatory work done by an expert group convened by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and, subject to approval by the UN General Assembly (UN GA) in early September, will be the first step towards a new multilateral debt restructuring framework that aims to prevent future debt crises, or at least manage them better.
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Impact of investment agreements on Africa's sustainable development
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This new report outlines the broad features of alternative policy approaches to foreign direct investment (FDI) and the policy perspectives embedded in IIAs. It provides a critique of IIAs with respect to their structure and core provisions, particularly investor-state dispute settlement provisions. The paper also provides an overview of the results of studies on the relationship between IIAs and FDI flows, underlining that most studies are unable to demonstrate a clear relationship between signing IIAs and receiving greater flows of FDI. At best, the relationship is ambiguous, and IIAs are neither necessary nor sufficient to attract FDI, according to the author.
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