This January, the people of Southern Sudan vote in an historic referendum to decide whether the South should remain part of a united Sudan or whether it should secede and become the world’s newest sovereign state. To mark the referendum, ODI has produced a number of resources looking at the development and humanitarian status of Southern Sudan.
Climate finance is central to the agenda of the Cancun meeting because financing is so important to reaching a new agreement. It has also proved to be a deeply contentious issue between developed and developing countries. ODI's work on aims to bring fresh perspectives and lesson learning from development finance. Our analysis focuses on the emerging governance framework for climate finance and the role that public sector and private sector finance can play.
Five years from the 2015 deadline for achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), world leaders at the United Nations MDG Summit in New York must agree on how best to accelerate progress. There is no time for scepticism or naivety. The MDGs need critical friends – friends who acknowledge their value, recognise their failings and have something sensible to say about next steps. ODI has produced a range of materials that provide such critical friendship.
In support of UN World Refugee Day (20 June) and Refugee Week (14–20 June) in the UK, the Humanitarian Policy Group at ODI has brought together its research to highlight the interrelated challenges that displacement, migration and urbanisation pose for humanitarian action.
The upcoming UK general election is touted as being the closest in a generation. What will the result mean for international development?
The world leaders from the G20 countries will meet in Toronto (June) and Seoul (November) this year in a new climate of collective austerity.
meeting of the Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, in Copenhagen, will attempt to deliver a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol. The outcome of the meeting will have a huge impact on the world’s poor and their struggle to secure a decent and sustainable future. This has engaged the energies of ODI researchers across the range of climate change issues to be debated: from mitigation and low carbon growth, through adaptation strategies and plans, to the financing of such actions and the role of the international community in helping developing countries respond to the unprecedented challenge of climate change.
ODI prepared a set of papers and blogs for the World Trade Organisation Ministerial; discussing whether or not to continue the Doha trade round, the potential rise of protectionism, and the relationship between trade and climate change. In addition, three ODI-hosted side events in Geneva looked at many of the same issues.
The UK White Paper on International Development has been launched amid global financial crisis and recession. With most eyes on the UK domestic situation, the White Paper set out the Government's stall on global poverty eradication.
Three key themes emerged, all of them of interest to ODI.
The world leaders from the G20 countries meet against the backdrop of the worst international banking crisis in generations.