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Green Growth: A Win-Win Approach to Sustainable Development?Danielle Resnick and James Thurlow The concept of ‘green growth’ is one which has understandable political currency, highlighted by its prominence in...
Danielle Resnick and James Thurlow The concept of ‘green growth’ is one which has understandable political currency, highlighted by its prominence in...
Tony Addison With the ice floes now gone from the harbour outside the UNU-WIDER building, and with the snow replaced by an icy hail, there is a...
Tony Addison I started writing this ‘From the Editor’s Desk’ in Accra, to the sound of an African drum band, preparing for a ceremony to mark the...
James Thurlow UNU-WIDER recently hosted an international conference on ‘Climate Change and Development Policy’. We were motivated by the apparent...
Yongfu Huang The climate change crisis and development needs of the world's poor require us to acknowledge the necessity and urgency for both...
23 April 2013 Marikki Stocchetti 2015 will mark a moment of truth for the international community as the era of the Millennium Development agenda...
24 June 2013 Aziz Karimov By the end of 2015, we will see a new global development agenda which will substitute the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs...
24 June 2013 Minister Gunilla Carlson Like every political agenda, the post-2015 agenda must be firmly based in a reality check. The current...
The international community rarely calls for a revolution. In this case, it has. A data revolution, says UNU-WIDER Director Finn Tarp. Viet Nam has...
This paper discusses the recent history of education aid policy. It highlights an important shift in policy thinking in the international aid architecture that has dominated the global education aid agenda since the early 1990s. It argues that...
The papers in this special issue represent the concluding stage of a 10-year research project, in the framework of UNU/WIDER, on economic stabilization and medium-term adjustment, directed by Professor Lance Taylor. This project has been one of the...
Much of the debate on green growth and environmental governance tends to be general in nature, and is often conceptual or limited to single disciplines. Even though recent discussions on these topics have benefited from the accumulation of empirical...
The concept of Green Growth implies that a wide range of developmental objectives, such as job creation, economic prosperity and poverty alleviation, can be easily reconciled with environmental sustainability. This article, however, argues that...
The Mekong River is the major water source in Southeast Asia and shared by six countries. There is a rush to acquire sources of alternative energy and other benefits to meet the growing demand for water and energy, while China and Myanmar have...
Part of Journal Special Issue Economics of climate change impacts on developing countries
The studies of this Special Issue aim to address the general question of how aid can better support the collective actions that seek to improve education systems in developing countries. Overall, they provide an analysis of key policy strategies that...
Part of Journal Special Issue Aid, Education Policy, and Development
Part of Journal Special Issue Aid, Education Policy, and Development
This collection examines the role that foreign aid can play in dealing with the severe global challenge of climate change, one of the most pressing international development issues of the 21st century. Addressing the key threats of rising...
Part of Book Aid Effectiveness for Environmental Sustainability
Part of Book Aid Effectiveness for Environmental Sustainability
According to information issued at the World Food Summit held in Rome in 1996, about one fifth of the world's population is now living under the poverty line, and this number is increase by 25 million people in developing countries every year. For...
Part of Journal Special Issue Horizontal inequality in the Global South
Since the 1960s the resource-rich developing economies have under-performed compared with the resource-deficient economies. This paper explains why and outlines the reforms that are required in order to achieve environmentally and socially...
There is a growing evidence suggesting that the ecological degradation in Africa is accelerating faster than the region's economic decline. More seriously, trees in Sub-Saharan Africa are being felled 30 times as fast as they are being replaced...
The proposals in this paper derive from studies undertaken at WIDER on questions relating to sustainable development in developing countries. The paper attempts to quantify the resource transfer implications of supporting feasible environment...
In 1994-97 Poland has recorded an outstanding economic performance in terms of GDP growth, simultaneous reduction of inflation and unemployment, fiscal balance, zloty real revaluation, capacity restructuring, private sector growth and institution...
This paper provides a review and critical discussion of indicators, which attempt to combine the measurement of sustainability with that of well-being. It starts with some commonly agreed definitions of sustainability, showing how most well-being...
Throughout human history, technology has proven its ability to contribute to higher material living standards, yet the work of poverty alleviation is far from complete. We believe that in the modern age, biotechnology holds remarkable potential for...
In river basins around the world, formal agreements based on international watercourse law are seen as important mechanisms for promoting sustainability and cooperation. While such agreements have been effective in avoiding conflict between states in...
The need for monitoring countries’ overall performance in sustainable development (SD) is widely recognized, but the methods for aggregating vast amounts of empirical data remain rather crude. This paper examines the so-called ‘benefit of doubt’...
Understanding the political economic drivers of energy planning in the Brazilian Amazon is critical since the forest is increasingly vulnerable to destruction and related, increased poverty. This research investigates how political economy affects...
Part of Book Aid Effectiveness for Environmental Sustainability
Part of Book Aid Effectiveness for Environmental Sustainability
Part of Book Aid Effectiveness for Environmental Sustainability
Part of Book Aid Effectiveness for Environmental Sustainability
Several types of transitions are operating in global forestry in the late twentieth century. These include the forest-management transition and the forest-area transition, as well as shifts in forest perceptions and forestry paradigms. A trend...
Many low-income countries in Africa are optimistic that producing biofuels will both reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels and stimulate economic development, particularly in poorer rural areas. Conversely, skeptics view biofuels as a threat to...
The importance of domestic revenue mobilization and taxation for sustainable development is widely acknowledged in global development discussions, but...
This paper establishes how accountability quality might mediate the effect of tax revenue on sustainable development in 41 sub-Saharan African countries for the period 1990–2019. The empirical evidence is based on three empirical strategies...
This paper explores how the concept of resilience has been used in development studies. Set amidst the rise of resilience in sustainable development, it offers insights for scholars and policy-makers, alike. Sampling 419 resilience-oriented journal...
The objective of this research is to assess the extent to which export processing zones in Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe integrate the Sustainable Development Goals in their implementation and operations. We focused on four Sustainable...
The situation of Afghanistan has drawn a picture of a poor, conflict-prone, doomed country. But this does not have to be the case. We have examples of...
The next decade is a make-or-break for the world’s most vulnerable countries. To tackle the unprecedented confluence of COVID-19, climate, and...
This month we had the honour to co-host the first ever LDC Future Forum here in Helsinki. It was our first large-scale live event since the COVID-19...
This paper examines the extent to which strategic environmental assessment (SEA) is implemented in Tanzania and whether its implementation is in line with generally practised procedures/criteria. Out of 17 completed SEA, eight cases were purposively...
What will it take to shake loose the distemper of our times, and initiate a virtuous spiral of renewal? In a recent UNU-WIDER webinar, Alan Hirsch and...
With the aid of an analytical framework of the Lewis model revised to reflect the experience of China, this paper examines the country’s dualistic economic development and its unique characteristics. The paper outlines the major effects of China’s...
We utilize the recently updated UNU-WIDER Government Revenue Dataset, which covers key indicators on tax and non-tax revenues for 196 countries since the 1980s, to study the dynamics of government revenue tax collection across selected periods from...
So we have reached April. The year is starting to move fast. I’m writing this from New York, having just participated in an event on the sustainable...
I have spent much of the last two years on behalf of UNU-WIDER engaged in thinking about these two issues, but only on this current trip to Toronto...
Just over a year ago, in March 2014, UNU-WIDER published a report entitled: What do we know about aid as we approach 2015? It notes the many successes...
This study seeks to understand what aid flows have been doing to the environment in eight countries in Eastern, Western and Southern Africa. Total aid to these countries’ environmental sectors for the 2000s decade is about US$10.17 billion and...
World leaders are now meeting at a special UN summit from 25–27 September to formally adopt the SDGs, which will then be implemented from 1 January...
This article is part of UNU’s “17 Days, 17 Goals” series, featuring research and commentary in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development...
The celebration of the 30th Anniversary of UNU-WIDER presented the ideal opportunity to look back, take stock, and plan ahead. Where else can a group...
UNU-WIDER had a busy September. We celebrated our 30th birthday with some 600 people at our three-day conference on ‘Mapping the Future of Development...
This paper assesses biofuels technology readiness and provides foresight to biofuels development in Southern Africa. Efficient conversion pathways, coupled with biomass from waste or high-yielding energy crops, reduces both the costs of biofuels...
Energy is linked to most of the major global challenges of the twenty-first century. Poverty eradication, climate change, ecosystem management, world health and security are all influenced by energy, its availability, cost, emissions and other...
Forest loss and degradation remains a leading environmental problem. The long history of sustainable forest management has often failed to meet expectations—constrained by funding, governance, capacity and competing interests. Initiatives from the...
In this episode of In Focus, we tackle the issue of growing inequality in Africa amidst impressive economic growth rates with Prof. Finn Tarp...
A large mining project has the potential to be a partner in assisting local communities in their development efforts. Communities located in close proximity to a large mine have every right to expect that the project will benefit their community...
Although agriculture is important for the livelihood of most Africans, especially the poor, donors did not accord it a high priority. Both volume and share of aid earmarked for agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa not only remained low, around five per...
The ReCom—Research and Communication on Foreign Aid—programme produced 240 original studies. Some 300 researchers from 60 countries came together and provided evidence on what does and could work in development, and what can be transferred and scaled...
In recognizing that women’s participation and gender equity is a precondition for the achievement of acceptable development outcomes, extractives industry companies are increasingly making public commitments to integrating gender equality, inclusion...
What are the major determinants of green growth? What role can the government play to promote green growth? To address these questions, this paper develops a simple Green Solow model that sheds light on the role of finance and technology in the...
Rapid urbanization, and particularly the associated problems of urban poverty, unsustainable development and environmental degradation, pose an enormous challenge to many developing countries. In the last decade more foreign aid has been diverted to...
This paper examines whether foreign aid, together with other economic, social and environmental factors, contributes to sustainable development. It starts with a theoretical model where sustainable development is modeled as a different kind of growth...
Agricultural development is facing great challenges in meeting global food security and is expected to face even greater difficulties under climate change. The overall goal of this paper is to examine how foreign aid in particular can be used to...
Cities—especially those with substantial poor populations—will face increasingly severe challenges in tackling the impacts of global environmental change (GEC). As economic dynamos and increasingly important population concentrations, cities both...
This paper examines what might be done to limit the boom-bust cycle in the flow of capital to emerging markets. Although the paper accepts that some types of capital flow (notably foreign direct investment) are much less problematic in this respect...
Improving tax systems is important for multiple reasons. For Kenya, finding ways to mobilize domestic revenue streams is critical to cutting the...
Pursuing the global development agenda will require genuine commitment from political leaders and significant stepping-up of government efforts. But...
The essays in this study contribute to an analysis of the prospects for the world's economy in the face of environmental constraints. The contributors examine the implications of development in both northern and southern hemispheres, and the extreme...
The essays in this study contribute to an analysis of the prospects for the world's economy in the face of environmental constraints. The contributors examine the implications of development in both northern and southern hemispheres, and the extreme...
In 2015 WIDER Annual Lecture 19 was given by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen. He discussed the overall challenge of sustainable and human-focused development including new and old challenges. Much progress has been made on the old issues of poverty and...
This paper explores the linkages between gender, local knowledge systems and agrobiodiversity for food security by using the case study of LinKS, a regional FAO project in Mozambique, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and Tanzania over a period of eight years and...
The paper introduces a novel framework for classifying different types of national political economies. It applies the outlined framework to analyse in an historical perspective the development of one mature renewable energy sector (onshore wind) and...
This paper examines, from a multidisciplinary perspective, plausible hypotheses for implementation of border carbon adjustment mechanisms, seen as a complement to strong environmental regulation. It highlights economic, legal, and political...
Several countries in Africa – including Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Uganda - have recently discovered large oil and gas or other mineral...
This paper examines the political economy aspects, particularly the influence of the Clean Development Mechanism, in clean energy and climate change policies in the states of Bahia and Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. The different mechanisms for...
Sustainable development is a long-term process, and as such must be examined carefully. Development implies structural changes of many different types, ranging from purely economic aspects to those affecting the personal circumstances of people...
Part of Journal Special Issue Bioenergy in Southern Africa
This paper explores the implications of climate change for industrial policy (IP). Five implications are discussed, namely the need for international coordination of IPs; for putting human development, and not emission targets, as the overriding...
This paper analyses debt relief efforts by creditors to alleviate the debt burden of low-income countries. The Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative builds on traditional debt relief, and for the first time involves relief on multilateral...
This paper evaluates Cameroon’s foreign debt situation by analysing its evolution (structure, debt service payment, debt ratio, borrowing conditions, etc.). The analysis is extended by examining the internal debt situation, taking into account its...
The concept of ‘green growth’ implies that a wide range of developmental objectives, such as job creation, economic prosperity and poverty alleviation, can be easily reconciled with environmental sustainability. This study, however, argues that...
by Richard Auty At first sight, countries that are abundant in minerals and other natural resources should enjoy faster development. But between 1960...
Part of Book Food Insecurity, Vulnerability and Human Rights Failure
Alisa DiCaprio Innovations in social protection systems design have moved forward quickly on the supply-side over the past decade. But the same degree...
Part of Book Resource Abundance and Economic Development
Static and dynamic gains from trade are the reasons why countries embark on the path of free trade, expecting this to promote industrialization and development. There is nothing, however, in the conventional theory of international trade that...
Part of Book Pathways to Industrialization in the Twenty-First Century
We analyse vertical and horizontal inequality in Ecuador from a long-run perspective, as well as during and after the commodities boom. Using various data sources we show that Ecuador has made significant progress in reducing inequality, particularly...
Part of Journal Special Issue African Development in an Urban World
Part of Book The Rise of China and India
Crisis can mean different things to different people. In response to this week's WIDER conference, we must ask ‘Which crises, and crises for whom?’...
This paper discusses the experience with opening up to the global economy of two small Central American countries, Honduras and Nicaragua. They have both strengthened democratic processes and reduced defence expenditure dramatically. Both have...
In most coastal developing countries, the artisanal fisheries sector is managed as a common pool resource. As a result, such fisheries are overcapitalized and overfished. In Ghana, in addition to anthropogenic factors, there is evidence of rising...
This paper analyses both global and regional approaches to solving problems of energy security and ecological imbalance by addressing specifically the problems of China’s energy security. China’s growing energy dependence has become a major concern...
Christian Friis Bach We need to unite the world in a strong effort to eradicate extreme poverty, promote sustainable development and ensure the right...
This paper offers a broad overview of the Hungarian development strategy over the past two decades. Combining historical and functional analysis, some major strengths and weaknesses are identified, with special emphasis on the country’s open-door...
Many low income countries in Africa are optimistic that producing biofuels domestically will not only reduce their dependence on imported fossil fuels, but also stimulate economic development, particularly in poorer rural areas. Skeptics, on the...
Part of Book The North, the South, and the Environment
Part of Book The Environment and Emerging Development Issues
Part of Book The Environment and Emerging Development Issues
Part of Journal Special Issue Sustainable Development
With the deadline for achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals just seven years away, there is an increasing sense of urgency over the...
Part of Journal Special Issue The Impact of Globalization on the World's Poor