Dans la période difficile que nous traversons, un défi majeur se présente à nous : l’impact de la crise du COVID-19 sur les entreprises. Le Coronavirus marque le retour des frontières dans le monde. La tentation du repli national est forte. Et la Suisse n’y échappe pas. Pendant plusieurs semaines, nos frontières, terrestres et aériennes, ont été fermées. Cependant, avec plus de 30 000 frontaliers français travaillant dans le domaine de la santé en Suisse, il s’agit justement de l’ouverture de notre marché du travail qui s’est révélée être un atout précieux. En cette période de crise sanitaire, que feraient nos hôpitaux et nos cliniques sans cette main-d’œuvre?
Back in 2015, the international community committed to a shared global vision towards sustainable development – the 2030 Agenda – including 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The Goals identify the areas in which resources are most needed. But with the realisation that meeting the Goals by 2030 would require filling an annual financing gap of 2.5 trillion dollars, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA) called upon a broader mobilisation of resources, including private ones.
Five years on, progress remains slow and uneven.
Three critical questions emerge from this context: How can we drive more resources towards the Goals? How can we make sure they are going where they are needed most?
And are they being used in the most effective way?
By Frederique Mestre, Senior Legal Officer, UNIDROIT
This blog is part of a special series exploring subjects at the core of the Human-Centred Business Model (HCBM). The HCMB seeks to develop an innovative – human-centred – business model
based on a common, holistic and integrated set of economic, social, environmental and ethical rights-based principles. Read more about the HCBM here, and check out an event about it here
The HCBM project originated in 2015 within the World Bank’s Global Forum on Law, Justice and Development and is now based at the OECD’s Development Centre
How can we ensure economic development while advancing social and environmental objectives? How can we promote sustainable growth – a concept that in today’s real world may sound like an oxymoron? These questions are at the core of governments’ concerns at a time when the planet and humanity are faced with greater and more pressing challenges than ever before.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a milestone amongst the many political and legal instruments forming global standards, policies and procedures adopted by the international community for a more sustainable planet. The SDGs call for action to respond to social and environmental challenges. They outline obligations for governments toward their citizens to promote political and social cohesion and a responsibility for them toward future generations to advance long-term sustainable ecosystems.1
In this context, governments should be responsive to virtuous stakeholder initiatives and support them with enabling policies and appropriate legal and regulatory frameworks. And one such stakeholder that can’t be overlooked is the private sector. Recognised as a major driver of productivity, inclusive economic growth and job creation, the private sector has an essential role to play in contributing to sustainable development.2Continue reading “How the public sector can support sustainable business”
By Jonathan Glennie, independent writer and researcher, and Gail Hurley, Policy Specialist on Development Finance at UNDP
This blog is part of an ongoing series evaluating various facets
of Development in Transition. The 2019 “Perspectives on Global Development” on “Rethinking Development Strategies” will add to this discussion
It is time to bring aid to an end.
Gradually, maybe, as a few “pockets of poverty” still persist. But this symbol of global collective action that has lasted seven decades will now, inevitably and as planned, be ended.
That is the common view of almost everyone. Whether you are a member of the general public in a “donor” country, still feeling the effects of an economic downturn, or a citizen of a “recipient” country whose economy feels like it is taking off for the first time in living memory. Whether you believe the aid era has been an unqualified failure and should be ended as soon as possible, or that aid has actually been quite successful in promoting development but has now largely “done its job” and can be rolled back as countries reach “middle income” status. Whether you think the hole left behind by aid can be filled by fairer tax collection or by better-targeted private sector finance, both of which are experiencing growth of historic proportions. Even (perhaps especially) if you are part of the aid industry and are well-practised at repeating the mantra that “our job is to do ourselves out of a job”.
Whatever side of the political spectrum you sit on, you are unlikely to disagree with the notion that aid should be decreased as recipient countries’ incomes rise, bringing to an end an experiment intended to kick-start growth in sluggish contexts, but not to last in perpetuity. With only 34 so-called low-income countries left, the only question left to be discussed is how to manage a good “exit strategy”.
Aid is temporary. Success is when aid is no longer necessary.
That’s what we thought, too. That’s what we were taught. But it’s wrong.
By Alain de Janvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet, Professors at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellows at the FERDI
At the FERDI-IDDRI conference on “Development, Climate and Security” held in Paris on January 15, 2018, Barbara Buchner from the Climate Policy Initiative reported on the state of global climate finance flows for mitigation and adaptation. She made two points. First, finance is under-invested to combat climate change if the COP21 target in temperature increase is to be met. Second, private investment’s role in complementing public investment in climate finance is large, with an estimated 2/3 private for 1/3 public in current total contributions. This stresses the fundamental part private investment can play in meeting the COP21 objectives, particularly at a time when governments face multiple demands on public expenditures.
With public investment targeted to induce private investment, this raises the issue of public investment’s effect as a private investment multiplier. A useful way of thinking about the under-investment issue is consequently how to target public investment to maximise the public-private investment multiplier.
By Chris Clubb, Managing Director, New Products and Knowledge, Convergence
The facts are known. Official Development Assistance (ODA) from member countries of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) will not grow at the rate necessary to fully deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Blended finance, defined as the strategic use of official (public) funds to mobilise private sector investment for emerging and frontier economies [1], is recognised as an important tool within the development toolbox to mobilise new capital sources to achieve the SDGs. Through blended finance, public funds can target a risk that the private sector is unwilling or unable to take. It also can be used to improve the risk-return profile of an investment to an acceptable level for the private sector. What all this does is attract much-needed private sector investment and know-how to projects. Continue reading “Blended Finance: Critical steps to ensure success of the Sustainable Development Goals”
By Lahra Liberti, Senior Advisor and Head of the Policy Dialogue on Natural Resource-based Development at the OECD Development Centre Governments and extractive firms are increasingly looking at how natural resources can generate benefits for their economies and societies as a whole. In Zambia, for every 10 direct mining jobs, approximately seven are created in first-tier mining suppliers. In turn, the incomes generated in mining … Continue reading Call for Comments: Maximising development outcomes from natural resources through public-private collaboration