Although Thailand and India are two of the world’s largest producers and exporters of fruits and vegetables, both countries suffer from severe food-safety and quality problems with its domestic and export-oriented produce. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development,...

Private investments in climate-change adaptation are important. First, because the costs of adaptation are too high to be met by the public sector alone. And second, developed countries pledged to mobilise USD 100 billion annually by 2020 to support developing countries’ climate change...

Irrigation can help to improve and stabilise agricultural productivity, thereby contributing to food security and to resilience against climate change. Irrigation – either full or supplementary – reduces reliance on erratic rainfall/droughts and increases yields; it extends cropping periods...

Around 2031, Africa’s working-age population will pass the 1-billion threshold. This growing workforce will require decent productive employment. So far, Africa’s economies have largely failed to create stable and well-paid jobs. For any one person working in the formal private sector, 10...

Adaptation to climate change is an inevitable challenge, especially in developing countries. Recent calculations show that costs of adaptation and corresponding needs for financial support are high. The international community therefore has to face urgent questions on how to meet these financial...

Changes in the financing of United Nations development cooperation (UN-DC) are gradually eroding the multilateral character of UN development aid. Two trends have become clear over the past 15 years. First, donors have more than doubled their financial contributions for UN development...

It is unclear how health will be positioned in the post-2015 development agenda. Health already plays a dominant role in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Likewise, funding for health has risen considerably since 1990. For the design of a future agenda, it is important to understand the...

Current discussions about the post-2015 global development framework provide an opportunity to reconsider the European Union’s potential role as a development actor for the coming decades. The EU should aspire to fulfil a post-2015 role that is only partly based on traditional support to...

One key challenge facing OECD-DAC donors at present is how to enlarge the community of actors committed to principles of effective aid delivery. The recently established Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation signals that global efforts to promote development goals will...

To the surprise of many, China has taken a pro-active stance in negotiations on the post-2015 agenda for global development at the United Nations (UN). In September 2013, the government issued a comprehensive position paper that aptly addresses a wide range of global challenges, from poverty...