​Leveraging private investment in developing countries has become a mantra for aid agencies around the world - but how can those who hold the public purse strings ensure that public money is spent well?

​Leveraging private investment in developing countries has become a mantra for aid agencies around the world - but how can those who hold the public purse strings ensure that public money is spent well?

The stories of forest and farm producers whose lives have changed for the better thanks to support from the Forest and Farm Facility (FFF) are featured in a new set of factsheets. A partnership between FAO, IIED and IUCN, the FFF works to strengthen producer organizations in order to improve the livelihoods and policy engagement of communities, women and indigenous peoples. The five thematic factsheets show how the FFF is making a difference to people’s lives in its 10 partner countries and at regional level by improving policy, secure tenure, income and access to markets, and giving smallholders a voice at global level. An accompanying video highlights the impact of FFF support on the ground in the words of forest and farm producers, government representatives and others.

Several plantation units exist in records but missing on the ground I 6 FIRs filed Lakhs of trees, both conifers and broad-leaved, claimed to have been planted by the Forest Department in the past few

Botswana lost more than 3,000 hectares of forest between 2001 and 2012 due to elephants, fuel wood harvesting, farming, overharvesting of veld products, overstocking of livestock, drought, mining activities

Watch Betty Ikalany’s social enterprise make a sustainable and healthier alternative to charcoal and firewood.

The concept of Blue Economy is emerging as a new narrative on productive and sustainable engagement with the vast development opportunities that oceanic resources offer. The important sectors of Blue Economy are fisheries, sea-minerals including oil and gas, ports and shipping, marine tourism, marine biotechnology, deep-sea mining, and transport and logistics.

It is believed that by undertaking Blue Economy initiative countries would be able to achieve high economic growth and maintain healthy balance between resource use and its renewability. However, there are few attempts to estimate the gains of Blue Economy. This assumes importance in the light of the fact that the world faces the challenge of restoring a healthy balance between the ambition of high economic growth and the goal of environmental sustainability. With the launch of SDGs, concerns are emerging in favour of sustainable use of natural resources especially in the context of growth-centric development models. In fact the oceans and the ocean related activities are viewed as the greatest source of growth in the post-recession period.

This report presents the synthesis of various conceptual and methodological issues relating to blue economy and the importance of this paradigm to the overall social and economic progress of the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) countries. Since there exist ambiguities over the coverage of blue economy sectors and data availability, empirical estimates of the size of blue economy and related indicators are avoided here.

Presently, the challenges before the South Asian countries are to identify the ways and means of achieving regional integration on a fast track basis. The move from SAPTA (South Asian Preferential Trading Arrangement) to SAFTA (South Asian Free Trade Area) and now the proposal for South Asia Economic Union is a pragmatic move towards the next stage of cooperation. South Asian countries need to move further from trade liberalization measures alone to regional investment cooperation strategy, production integration, and technology cooperation. In the economic union and common market, macro- economic coordination also assumes greater significance.

The theme of the 7th SAES was “Towards South Asia Economic Union”. Several eminent scholars from India and abroad presented research papers at this Summit, and discussed a number of key issues that are relevant from the point of view of deepening South Asian integration. What emerges out of the deliberations is that the creation of South Asian Economic Union (SAEU) would prove to be a milestone in the regional cooperation efforts. The selected papers of the Summit are now presented in a single volume which will become a valuable reference for scholars and researchers as well. The papers of this volume also provide important policy lessons.

Papers include:

• South Asia Economic Union: Challenges and Tasks Ahead 
• Challenges to Regional Services Integration in South Asia Services Trade in South Asia: An Assessment
• Strengthening South Asia Value Chain: Prospects and Challenges
• Potential and Prospects of Strengthening Transport Connectivity for Regional Economic Integration in Southern Asia
• Connectivity for the South Asia Economic Union
• Stimulating Intra-Regional Investment in SAARC: Is a Regional Investment Agreement the Way Forward?
• Payment Systems to Facilitate South Asian Integration
• Post-2015 Agenda and Regional Cooperation in South Asia
• Regional Integration and the Post-2015 Framework: A South Asian Perspective

 

With the Tenth WTO Ministerial Conference in Nairobi, the efforts for trade liberalisation and strengthening of multilateral trading arrangement have come to a full circle. What started in 1995 with graduation from GATT to WTO has come to a point where several challenges for multilateralism are clearly discernible. As a result, it is not surprising that the usual excitement for WTO ministerial meeting is missing this time. The demand to close the Doha Development Round has triggered a deep sense of pessimism across low income and other developing countries. They have also been left outside the Mega-Regionals groupings, which have emerged in all parts of the world. Therefore, lowering of ambition at WTO is a direct outcome of these arrangements.

Signing of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is an unprecedented development in the annals of the economic history of the world. Along with TPP another three mega regionals, viz. TTIP, RCEP and FTAAP, have made significant headway in their negotiations, and are likely to be formed in the coming years. These four regional groupings are distinct from those of other existing regional grouping in terms of their content, scope and impact on the global economy. There is discussion about another four mega regionals namely, EU-ASEAN, EU-Japan, China-Japan-Korea FTA and Pacific Alliance, which have got similar features to be treated as mega regionals. UN (2015) has treated Trade in Services (TISA) and Tripartite Free Trade Agreement (TFTA) as mega regionals which can have a major hold over the global economic activities in the recent years.

Mega regionals have significant command over several important economic activities in the world economy. Their contributions are felt in several frontiers of economic activities including GDP, FDI, Foreign Exchange Reserves, Saving Ratios, Gross Fixed Capital Formation, etc. among others. In several mega regionals, simultaneous presence of members from developed and emerging countries are seen, stressing on different dimensions of their economic engagement. In many such cases, developed countries have shown their strong base in several macro-economic activities but lacking growth whereas emerging countries have shown their surging growth in these activities.

 

The seminar discussed forest-related development and provision of forest data for advancing sustainable development. Discussions focused on topics such as implications of sustainable development goals for forests, environmental concerns in the bioeconomy discourse, perceptions of the problem of illegal logging and its solutions across the globe, equity discourses around REDD+ and the relationship between REDD+ and agricultural intensification as well as the implications of the climate agreement of COP21 in Paris.

The seminar took place in Helsinki, Finland, on 1 March 2025 and was supported by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland.

Download the full Scientific Summary:

You will also find reports from the Teaknet partner event at the Asia-Pacific Forestry Week 2016 and the 59th SWST International Convention with the theme "Forest Resource and Products: Moving Toward a Sustainable Future."

The announcements section reports about activities on the occasion of the International Forest Day 2016, informs about the availability of the latest podcast in the Division 3 series on Forest Operations Engineering and Management, and calls attention to position openings, new publications and publication projects as well as upcoming IUFRO and non-IUFRO meetings.

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This briefing highlights the importance of country starting points for implementing the Sustainable Development Goals and the Leave No One Behind Agenda.

What happens to inequality as countries raise themselves out of poverty?

After Kandhamal district, sandalwood smugglers seem to be spreading their network to neighbouring Gajapati in Odisha. Two sandalwood trees on the premises of government offices at Mohana in the district

The National Green Tribunal’s Southern Bench here has ordered issuing of notice to Tangedco on an application which sought to stop the cutting of trees in Tiruverkadu near here for installing overhead

The issue of Aarey’s status remains significant to preserve the greenery of the area which activists allege is at a risk of being grabbed. IN A hearing before the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Wednesday,

Acclimation of leaf respiration to a 3–5-year period of warming by 3.4 °C for 10 North American tree species in forest conditions eliminated 80% of the increase in leaf respiration expected of non-acclimated

Agra: The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has issued notice to Union ministry of environment and forest, Uttar Pradesh government, UP Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) and others seeking

Sierra Leone officials have launched a crackdown on people thought to be violating the country’s law protecting the forest by arresting a registered surveyor.According to sources in Freetown on Wednesday,

Why and how learning needs to be at the centre of adaptive development programming.