Two major multilateral agencies have elected BRICS candidates (that is, candidates from Brazil, Russia, India, China or South Africa) as their Directors-General in the last two months. Are we seeing signs of increased leadership in global governance from the BRICS countries?
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.
The integration between aid and politics is widely seen in the humanitarian sector as a cause of contracting humanitarian space, as humanitarians lose their independence and neutrality and are associated with contested political projects. This meeting discussed these trends and the evidence for integration negatively affecting humanitarian space.
A high-level international report on how financial resources can be raised to help developing countries address climate change is a disappointing and politics-free compromise. Simon Maxwell proposes a way beyond it.
