Getting agreement on global action to prevent tax evasion was never going to be easy. In the event, the G8 summit communiqué has delivered more than a whimper, but far less than the big bang that many had hoped for.
Let’s start with the good news.
Back at the first RioEarth Summitin 1992, the civil society organisations in attendance counted an unusual group among their number. Amid the assorted staffers and activists from environmental and development NGOs, there was a handful of campaigners who had a very different relationship with the Earth: representatives of an astronauts' organisation. Their reason for being there? Having seen the planet from space, they'd learned to view it from a different angle.
This ODI Opinion reflects on the impact of 9/11 on the aid, development and security landscape and explores how development and security concerns merged in a new lexicon (‘fragility’, ‘radicalisation’, ‘stabilisation’). This raised hopes for development approaches that might better combine action to assure the human security of poor people with orthodox social and economic development. It also, however, raised fears that the ‘securitisation’ of aid would undermine both development and humanitarian action.
Development professionals and academics working on international development and Brazil-EU relations met in Brussels last week to discuss future priorities for the Brazil-European Union strategic partnership, including in the area of development cooperation.
Remember, the main element of the Spring Package was a twelve-point EU Action Plan in support of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The performance of the G8 at its Italian summit suggests that it has lost its way on international aid and development policy, say Marta Foresti & Leni Wild.
The text says that ‘prosperity is indivisible’ and that the recovery plan must safeguard the needs and jobs of hard-working families in all the countries of the world.