Over the past few decades, market-based finance has become central to the global financial system. Huge volumes of financial instruments are traded on a daily basis. In an effort to improve access to global financial markets for African countries, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) – in cooperation with the asset management firm PIMCO – has proposed setting up a Liquidity and Sustainability Facility (LSF). This is designed to create a Special Purpose Vehicle to subsidise private sector investment in African sovereign debt. The LSF would be financed by official development assistance (ODA), multilateral development banks and/or by the central banks of members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is a multilateral bank for infrastructure financing and plans to become the leading global institution for financing infrastructure projects. The study from autumn 2020 analyses why binding rules on transparency at the AIIB, especially with regard to its environmental and social standards, are very important.
China’s emissions pathway during the coming decades is probably the single biggest factor in determining the achievability of the climate targets agreed in Paris. This fact is due to the still growing size of the Chinese economy and its carbon intensity, based on its reliance on coal to fuel the power system. This paper contributes towards fostering a deeper understanding of the challenges and the potential of Chinese-European interaction in the transition to a zero-carbon economy
China and the EU are currently negotiating a new, far-reaching investment treaty called the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI). This scoping paper focuses on the potential risks for the EU from enshrining rights for Chinese investors in Europe in an international investment treaty.
This paper discusses how debt-for-climate swaps can be useful “triple-win” instruments to address the climate crisis by ensuring the protection of valuable terrestrial and marine ecosystems, while also contributing to debt sustainability.
This paper examines the experience with debt-for-development swaps and major debt relief processes in order to draw some lessons that could help shape a debt-for-climate initiative (DCI).
The work shows that in the discourse on transformation and sustainability in the fight against the constantly advancing climate change, a systematic integration of the issues of social inequality and the global creation of decent livelihoods are absolutely necessary.
This report proposes a Debt Relief for Green and Inclusive Recovery Initiative as an ambitious, concerted, and comprehensive debt relief initiative that frees up resources to support recoveries in a sustainable way, boosts economies’ resilience, and fosters a just transition to a low-carbon economy.
This edition of Perspectives tackles questions of state capture, and how the concept can contribute to understanding and strengthening democracies across Africa. Our contributors also open the possibilities that emerge when “state capture” is released from particular institutional settings and national boundaries.
Ambitious, sophisticated, and resolutely grounded in everyday realities, "Free, Fair and Alive" present a compelling vision of a future that can actually work. Written by two highly experienced commons activists, this book is at once a penetrating cultural critique, table-pounding political treatise, and practical playbook for building a new world of commoning.
