Climate finance in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS)

Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) countries lack sufficient funds to combat climate change. The growth of projects under the clean development mechanism (CDM) is not consistent in the region and the relation of that growth to national GDP is not equivalent either. The disbursement of climate funds promised by different countries and donor organisations to different countries in GMS region is very low. A few countries have relied more on external funds to combat climate change, while some have developed their own funds. A strong database and involvement of civil societies might help the region better utilise these climate funds.     

Assessing the credibility of how climate adaptation aid projects are categorised

This article presents the findings of a re-evaluation of all 5,200 aid projects that OECD donors reported for 2012 as “climate change adaptation”-related, based on the “Rio marker” classification system. The findings confirm those from the academic and grey literature that the absence of independent quality control makes the adaptation Rio marker data almost entirely unreliable. This lack of credibility impedes meaningful assessments of progress toward the mainstreaming of adaptation in development cooperation activities. It also erodes trust in international climate negotiations, given that these data are frequently used in the financial reporting of developed countries to the UNFCCC.     

印度应对气候变化战略和清洁发展机制项目的实践

本文介绍了印度应对气候变化战略和在开发清洁发展机制项目中的实践，包括印度国家气候变化行动计划的主要内容、气候变化的主要协调部门和有关机构。印度开发清洁发展机制（CDM）项目的进程，CDM项目的协调机构，CDM项目的背景、开发潜力预测，分析了已经注册的印度CDM项目的类型和地区分布，最后给出了印度应对气候变化战略和开发CDM项目实践对中国的几点启示。     

边境地区对俄投资合作的现状、问题和对策——以绥芬河市和东宁县为例

近年来,中俄地区间的合作呈现出良好态势,从商品贸易到投资合作均步入较深的层次,对投资所在地的经济发展也产生了较好的影响。但是,中国企业在俄远东和西伯利亚地区的投资合作仍存在大项目少、规模小的问题。除去资金和气候的因素外,政策上的扶持也尤为重要。因此,应充分利用国家层面的合作框架,在中俄地方间政企联合,共同招商,吸引国内外投资者加盟,增加境外合作区的吸引力和辐射功能等方面进行探索,以促进中俄地区间合作稳步发展。     

澜湄水资源安全与合作:流域发展导向的分析视角

进入21世纪,澜湄流域的人口增长、经济快速发展和城镇化,增加了各国用水需求,而各国对水资源的非协调性开发以及气候变化影响下的极端天气频发,导致水安全问题凸显,流域可持续发展面临压力。当前,澜湄流域水安全处于中等脆弱状态,但已建、在建和计划建设项目的累积影响将进一步加剧水资源脆弱性。为保障水安全,湄公河国家迫切期望加强彼此之间及与上游的中国在水资源问题上的磋商、协调和合作,其共同水安全需求从低到高可分为四个层次:防洪安全、供水安全、生态安全及水—粮食—能源协同安全。这四种安全需求是同时存在的,但在流域国家社会经济发展所处的不同阶段,亦有不同侧重。澜湄水安全合作既要满足流域各国水安全需求,又不能脱离流域的整体发展,因此应正确把握安全与发展的辩证关系,分阶段、有步骤地推进和深化:尽早建立风险防控协调机制,开展流域国家联合勘察和应对气候变化协同研究;2030年左右建立供水安全和生态安全合作机制;到21世纪中叶开展全流域水资源综合管理,实现水—粮食—能源协同安全。     

安全观与东盟气候变化认知及政策

东南亚是世界上最易受到气候变化影响的地区之一。作为东南亚重要的地区一体化组织,东盟应对气候变化的政策受到越来越多的关注。作为对基于物质条件与能力的解释的补充,从观念的影响出发可以为理解东盟气候变化安全认知与应对政策提供一个新的视角。由于地理暴露度与社会经济脆弱性,东盟面临着高度的气候变化风险。而东盟如何认知与应对气候变化风险带来的安全威胁,除了受到客观条件的影响外,还受到其综合安全观的框定作用。在综合安全现的影响下,东盟对气候变化安全的认知与应对表现出三个特征,即将气候变化安全诠释为实现可持续发展问题、采取多领域综合性应对措施以及鼓励多元化主体参与。目前,东盟的主导安全观是以国家为中心的综合安全观,但随着"人的安全"思想影响的增强,东盟气候变化认知与应对正在发生微妙变化。     

Beyond patriotic discourse in financing the SDGs: investment-linked diaspora revenue bonds model for sub-Saharan Africa

Mobilising and sustaining investment flows are two interrelated challenges of development financing. Given the untapped potential of remittances and knowledge flows of sub-Saharan Africa diasporas, an investment-linked diaspora revenue bonds model is proposed to target three issues: generating diaspora investments, which will not be used to service sovereign debts; linking such investments to projects, programmes, and sectors with high economic returns; and developing hybridised institutional frameworks of local and diaspora actors to manage this investment. This model, a hybrid of sovereign and corporate bonds, draws lessons from the Sukuk market and other diaspora bonds to offer an alternative solution to the multi-dimensional nature of development financing challenges confronting SSA countries.     

Job creation in fragile states through SME financing: notes from post-war Liberia

Sustainable job creation in post-conflict environments often involves financing private-sector development. However, a poor business climate and the erosion of capacity in the domestic private sector reduce the effectiveness of traditional financing strategies in post-conflict environments. Using the experience of post-war Liberia, this article discusses strategies for improving small and medium enterprise (SME) development projects in post-conflict environments through innovative financing which takes into account the effects of conflict on managerial and entrepreneurial capacity and the business climate. Implementation strategies that support conflict-sensitive post-conflict development are also discussed.     

Climate business for poverty reduction? The role of the World Bank

The World Bank is increasingly active in the area of climate change mitigation. While it justifies this engagement with its poverty reduction objective and its capacity to pave the way for new business activities in developing countries, critics blame the World Bank as a ??climate profiteer?? and as an unfair competitor in private markets. Our econometric analysis of over 2,000 projects registered until May 2010 under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol allows us to compare the activities of the Bank with those of other, primarily private actors. The results indicate that hardly any of the CDM projects can be considered as strongly pro-poor. Nevertheless, in comparison to the rest of the CDM projects, the Bank??s portfolio shows a relatively clearer orientation towards poor countries. Within these countries, however, the Bank does not show any particular pro-poor focus, and tends to implement those projects that are commercially most attractive. Moreover, there is no evidence of the Bank phasing out its activities once the market becomes fully operational, which goes against its professed pioneering and catalytic role in carbon markets.     

Environment and climate mainstreaming: challenges and successes

This paper examines mainstreaming environment and climate change into development policy, planning, and budgeting. It looks at why we should integrate environment and climate and outlines challenges and successes. One result is that governments’ progress pro-poor and equitable development. Governance gains are important too: co-benefits include more transparent decision making and better cross-government working. Ultimately, the impact of mainstreaming has increased awareness, changed perceptions, and improved the way inter-sectoral decisions are made, especially in climate adaptation. This supports countries to achieve their sustainable development ambitions – lessons which could be applied to a post-2015 development agenda.     

The international dimension of democratization: testing the parsimonious approach

This article examines the importance of the international context on regime change. It provides evidence that geographic proximity to the European Union (EU) does not result in the spread of democracy. In contrast, communication and cooperation between EU actors and sub-national regions contributes significantly to the development of democracy in these regions. Considering the role of EU projects, investments and trade in regime transition—measured through indicators of civil society, political openness, freedom of speech and economic liberalization—this article demonstrates that international context may have a positive influence on the diffusion of democracy at a regional, sub-national level. This finding has substantial implications for the literature on international relations and globalization studies. It suggests that the emergence of ‘new’ regions through communication and cooperation takes place through two seemingly contradictory but mutually reinforcing processes: regionalization (territorial disintegration/federalization) and integration (through communication and cooperation).     

越南农村地区环境问题:现状及解决措施

越南农村地区面临着环境污染问题,越南政府已颁布了多项环境保护政策和措施以有效保护环境和促进农村的可持续发展。这些政策包括:提高人口素质、减少贫困、增加农村基础设施投入、扶助农村和农村家庭经济发展、环境保护,以及保障清洁水供应、提高农村环境卫生质量、修建畜牧业沼气站、建立生态示范村、鼓励新鲜食品生产和采取有效措施应对气候变化等。     

One village one product: evaluations and lessons learnt from OVOP aid projects

The One Village One Product project that originated in Japan's Oita Prefecture is just one component of many official Japanese development assistance projects aiming to promote rural development in more than 30 countries. Not all efforts, however, result in the same level of sustainability. Oita Prefecture built its movement on three principles: local yet global, self-reliance and creativity, and human resources development. The projects that satisfy these principles are generally found to be sustainable. These principles can also be applicable to overseas projects.     

Understanding food policy change in Ghana

Evidence-based policy-making has become a critical aspect of development strategy in developing countries. Yet the assumption that policymakers will automatically use available evidence may not be valid in all contexts. To influence positive policy change requires an understanding of the unique policy process and drivers of policy change in the context of a particular country and sector. Strengthening the capacity of key agricultural policy stakeholders can facilitate evidence-informed policy-making. This article documents an approach to strengthening the capacity of parliamentarians in Ghana. It attempts to measure to what extent such investments could lead to informed policy-making to promote poverty reduction. Lessons are drawn from a group of Ghanaian parliamentarians following an exposure and learning visit to India.     

Supporting local climate adaptation planning and implementation through local governance and decentralised finance provision

Policies developed at national levels can be unresponsive to local needs. Often they do not provide the rural poor with access to the assets and services they need to allow them to innovate and adapt to the ways that increased climate variability and change exacerbate challenges to basic securities – food, water, energy, and well-being. In development deficit circumstances, common pool resources are important for climate adaptation purposes. In order for climate adaptation actions to deliver resilience, local perspectives and knowledge need to be recognised and given due priority in formal planning systems. Basing formal adaptive development planning on local strategies can support and strengthen measures that people have been tested and know to work. Local climate adaptation through collective action can address current increases in climate variability, future incremental changes, and the need to transform existing systems to deal with qualitative shifts in climate. These types of adaptation can work in cumulative ways. The results of local adaptation collective action that have benefits of low rivalry between users while being highly inclusive can be considered “local public goods”. Evidence is beginning to emerge that when local governance systems facilitate high levels of participation in planning collective action for climate adaptation, and direct access to resources for implementing local plans, “local public goods” can be created and common pool resources better managed.     

Participatory technology development in agricultural mechanisation in Nepal: how it happened and lessons learned

International Wheat and Maize Improvement Center (CIMMYT) projects on new resource-conservation technologies (RCTs) in the Indo-Gangetic Plains of Nepal aimed to strengthen equity of access, poverty reduction, and gender orientation in current rural mechanisation processes – more specifically, to promote machine-based resource conservation and drudgery-reduction technologies among smallholder farmers. These projects, together with other projects and other actors, gave rise to an informal ‘coalition’ project, which used participatory technology development (PTD) approaches, where farmers, engineers, scientists, and other partners worked towards equitable access to new RCTs. This experience showed that PTD projects need to be flexible, making use of learning and change approaches. Once successful adoption is occurring, then what? Such projects need to ensure that everyone is benefiting in terms of social inclusion and equity; this might necessitate new unforeseen work.     

Fostering uptake: lessons from climate change vulnerability assessments in Africa and Latin America

Findings from climate change vulnerability assessments can inform decision-makers in their evaluation of options to reduce the negative impacts of climate change. Certain attributes of an assessment can improve the use or uptake of its results. The science policy literature describes three characteristics – credibility, salience, and legitimacy – as being necessary for the uptake of scientific results for decision-making. We draw from the experiences of eight climate change vulnerability assessments conducted in Africa and Latin America for USAID (United States Agency for International Development) to explore the practical application of these three characteristics to fostering uptake of the assessment results.     

Institutionalising mechanisms for building urban climate resilience: experiences from India

This paper examines how mainstreaming of urban climate change resilience – a crucial consideration in an increasingly urbanised world – is occurring at both the city and national scale, using the case of an internationally-funded resilience-building initiative in India. Surat city's newly-established Climate Change Trust illustrates the importance of an institutionalised mechanism for coordinating and sustaining climate initiatives. Concurrently, climate resilience is being mainstreamed into the national urban development agenda, through a network of Indian institutions. These two nascent mechanisms offer avenues for local city-level experiences to inform national directives, driving and sustaining the urban climate adaptation agenda across India.     

创造国际直接投资新环境开拓中俄经贸合作新局面

中俄两国经贸关系走上了正常发展的轨道,相互投资成为深化两国经济关系的重要内容。国际直接投资是突破贸易壁垒、进入一国市场的重要手段,也是稳定中俄经济关系的根本基础。中俄相互投资存在经济转轨尚未完全实现、法律法规不健全、缺乏有效的筹资渠道、沟通渠道不畅等制度性和基础性障碍。为促进中俄两国相互投资健康、快速发展,应在签定双边投资协定、建立中俄商业协会、开辟投资融资途径、相互建立工业园区以及举办投资洽谈会等方面构建相互投资的宏观环境。