Evolving around the main essay “Sharing life. The Ecopolitics of Reciprocity”, all contributions to this assemblage reflect a common understanding that ecology and biodiversity needs to be reclaimed – and constantly generated – as a process of lived and living realities in a system of reciprocal relationships.

The paper proceeds by setting out pertinent aspects of the South African context and the
key role of its electricity sector in contributing to the country’s worsening debt profile.

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).

In 2020, a number of international conferences and talks marking the 25th anniversary of the Dayton Accords brought the country back into the international spotlight. On this occasion, the Heinrich Böll Foundation's office in Sarajevo captured numerous voices on how to deal with the dysfunctional system.

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

Our foundation fights for democracy and human rights, argues for the social-ecological change, pleads for a solidary Europe and an equal social participation of all citizens. In our Annual Report 2019, we report on our work at home and abroad.

Fossil fuel development, in particular oil and gas, promised vast riches in the past. Today it is exposing fossil fuel producers and their creditors to a massive stranded asset risk. Technological disruption with the rapid cost-reduction of renewable energy and storage technologies, in conjunction with the inevitability of increased climate action, are at the root of unprecedented uncertainties over the future of the sector. 

South Africa’s economy, which was already in a precarious state before Covid-2019, has been tipped into full blown crisis by the pandemic. Gross na-tional government debt  is expected to be upwards of 86% within two years. Eskom, which is the country’s state-owned monopolistic and vertically integrated electricity utili-ty, is a key driver of this escalating debt profile and lies at the heart of the economy’s structural challenges. 

This paper outlines some viable options for creating an architecture for a Debt-for-Climate Initiative (DCI). This is intended to enable countries to recover from the pandemic.