Issue No. 356 (2023/3)

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COVER: The challenge of financing development

UN Financing for Development: The best chance to democratise global economic governance?
By Flora Sonkin and Iolanda Fresnillo
The international financial architecture is in urgent need of reform to support developing economies’ progress, and the forum best placed to realise this aim is the United Nations’ Financing for Development process.

A half-hearted effort: The G20’s finance track
By C.P. Chandrasekhar
Initiatives on the development financing front by the G20 grouping of the world’s leading economies have fallen short of delivering adequate respite to debt-ridden and other vulnerable countries.

Seeking a way out of the debt maze
By Iolanda Fresnillo and Ilaria Crotti
For the increasing number of countries weighed down by loan burdens, debt relief will free up much-needed fiscal space to pursue their development aspirations. However, current debt restructuring efforts are messy, difficult and woefully insufficient, necessitating a comprehensive mechanism for sovereign debt resolution.

Time to reform the global tax architecture
By Antonio Salvador
A new international taxation framework is sorely needed – one that advances the interests of developing countries and meets the challenges posed by the digital economy.

Finding place for a progressive trade agenda in the FfD process
By Ranja Sengupta
Resources to achieve development goals can also be raised through international trade. Developing countries thus need to step up engagement in the UN Financing for Development talks – where trade issues have been given relatively short shrift – in order to enhance the capacity of trade as an engine of development.

The grand narrative of private finance
By Bhumika Muchhala and María José Romero
Growing reliance on private capital to address development challenges is detracting from the imperative of deep-rooted global financial reform, write Bhumika Muchhala and María José Romero.

ECOLOGY

The struggle for environmental justice in Africa
By Nnimmo Bassey
Africa’s myriad ecological challenges are the result of acts that view the continent as a sacrificial zone. In the following edited version of a speech presented at a recent environmental conference, Nnimmo Bassey calls for resistance against the despoilers and plunderers.

The modern form of colonialism: climate change
By Tapti Sen
Developed countries are primarily responsible for the climate crisis, but it is developing countries like Bangladesh that are the most vulnerable to its effects.

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