The latest issue of South Bulletin focuses on the big UN process on formulating Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and at the same time trying to decide on the UN’s Post-2015 Development Agenda.   These are the two issues that will dominate the agenda of the UN’s economic and social work in the next couple of years.
 
The SDGs emerged from the Rio+20 Summit on Sustainable Development held in Rio, Brazil last year.  That Summit asked the General Assembly to come up with a set of SDGs that would hopefully enable the world to focus on what priority goals to work towards in the future.  A UN working group has now met three times to discuss the conceptual framework as well as issues like poverty, food security, agriculture, drought and water.   This week it is meeting on employment and health.
 

This issue of the South Bulletin reports on the meeting between the South Centre’s Chairman, Mr. Benjamin Mkapa, and China’s President, Mr. Xi JinPing, held in Tanzania.

Mr. Mkapa explained the work and priorities of the Centre and President Xi praised the efforts of the Centre in promoting South-South cooperation and in increasing the representation of the Centre, and said China would continue to provide help to the Centre.

The latest South Bulletin provides an analysis of the Climate Conference of the UNFCCC (held in Doha in November - December 2012). The conference had low ambition in terms of emission reduction and finance for developing countries. But progress was made on “loss and damage” resulting from the effects of climate change, in the adaptation agenda.

Due to the global economic situation, many countries around the world are either facing debt crises or on the verge of falling into one.

This issue of South Bulletin focuses on resolving the debt crises, especially through the setting up of an international debt resolution mechanism, an idea whose time has come.

This issue of South Bulletin focuses on the emerging crisis of investment treaties. An epidemic of international legal suits taken by companies against governments for billions of dollars is causing public concern and leading to reviews of international investment treaties.

This issue of South Bulletin focuses on trade – the WTO impasse and the possible roads ahead, the multilateral trading system and current topical WTO issues; and the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings held in Tokyo on 9-14 October 2012.

This issue of South Bulletin focuses on the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit held in Tehran on 30-31 August 2012. The Summit concluded in high spirits with the political leaders adopting several declarations and action plans, and many of them calling for a revival of the importance of NAM, especially to protect the countries from foreign intervention and to build a multi-polar world.

This issue of South Bulletin focuses on how developing countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa are now facing an economic slowdown with a deterioration in GDP growth, exports and lending conditions.  The effects of the Eurozone recession and the US slowdown are now increasingly felt in the South.

This issue of South Bulletin covers many interesting issues. Our two lead articles are on the BANKING CRISIS in developed countries.  The first by Martin Khor reviews how the LIBOR scandal has contributed to the loss of confidence on the ethics of the major banks.  The second article is by India’s former Central Bank Governor, Dr. Y.V. Reddy on the need to re-make the financial system to meet society’s needs.  He focuses on why trust has to be restored, how there has been “comprehensive regulatory capture” of the system, and the need for inclusive finance, as issues to address.

This issue of South Bulletin focuses solely on the Rio plus 20 Summit held in Brazil and the important follow up actions that were mandated by that Summit.

Although there was negative media portrayal about the Summit, it did have some achievements. At least the Rio principles of 1992 were reaffirmed, including common but differentiated responsibilities. There was an agreed outcome document, something that cannot be taken for granted , after the failure of the WTO to conclude its Doha agenda or the Copenhagen climate meeting.

This issue of the South Bulletin focuses on the Rio Plus 20 Summit to be held in 20-22 June in Brazil.  The meetings actually begin on 13 June.

Twenty years after the Earth Summit the world faces even more serious crises in the environment and the economy.  Will Rio+20 do better in rising to the challenge of tackling the global crises?

After two years of negotiations, the Summit meetings are now underway.  But the outcome of the Summit is still far from decided.

This issue of South Bulletin focuses on two sets of negotiations at the United Nations --  the UNCTAD XIII which starts on 21 April in Doha, and the Rio+20 summit to be held in June.

UNCTAD conferences are held every four years.  The last two sessions were quite tame affairs.  But UNCTAD XIII (21-26 April in Doha) is expected to be difficult and even fiery, because the future mandate of UNCTAD to undertake work on key issues like the global financial crisis is being questioned.  Pre-conference negotiations in Geneva hit an impasse. The developing countries are putting up a fight to preserve the mandate given at UNCTAD XII in 2008.  

This issue of South Bulletin focuses on the UNCTAD XIII conference in Doha at the end of April. It ended with the adoption of a Doha Mandate, which gave UNCTAD a new and broad 4 year mandate to continue to work on a wide range of issues, including the global financial crisis, macro-economic policy and debt, as well as other trade and development issues.  

This issue of South Bulletin highlights a keynote speech made by the Chairperson of the South Centre, H.E. Mr. Benjamin W. Mkapa, former President of Tanzania, in which he made a critical analysis of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) that the African countries are negotiating with the European Union, and the alternatives for the East African Community and for African countries.

This issue of South Bulletin (12 March 2012) focuses on several events linked to the South Centre’s Board and Council meetings and held on 31 January – 3 February 2012 in Geneva.

The main article briefly reports on the South Centre’s Seminar on the Global Economic Downturn and Current Multilateral Negotiations, held on 2-3 February in Geneva.Conference speakers warned that developing countries had not de-coupled from the advanced economies and would be adversely affected in different ways by the new global economic slowdown. This issue also gives a report on the Board and Council meetings and on the Centre’s key activities in 2011.