The Current Column

More duty than choice: Supporting refugees in a globalised world

Matias, Denise Margaret S. / Antonio G.M. La Viña (2017)
The Current Column, 19. June 2017

At a time of increasing nationalism and increasing number of forcibly displaced persons, the World Refugee Day is a reminder that the world should develop inclusively, “with refugees”.

Political parties: weak point in the sustainability architecture

Kloke-Lesch, Adolf (2017)
The Current Column, 29. May 2017

A tragedy is looming. While the German Government and federal state governments are beginning to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the political parties behind them appear conspicuously unconcerned and are lagging perceptibly behind the dynamics in business and society.

The Marshall Plan with Africa – Looking ahead to the principles of development effectiveness

Rudolph, Alexandra / Sarah Holzapfel (2017)
The Current Column, 02. May 2017

Development Minister Müller’s Marshall Plan with Africa includes key points for a new German development strategy with Africa. The Marshall Plan should include development effectiveness criteria for public and private players from the beginning, and thereby take the development effectiveness agenda further.

Higher education for the SDGs – particularly in the global South

Stamm, Andreas (2017)
The Current Column, 12. April 2017

We need knowledge-based strategies for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), otherwise their implementation will fail. Development cooperation actors have long considered themselves expertise brokers. North-South knowledge transfer needs to be replaced by joint, practice-based learning among researchers from many different nations.

Linking aid effectiveness with the 2030 Agenda: three steps

Holzapfel, Sarah / Alexandra Rudolph (2017)
The Current Column, 06. March 2017

Development cooperation should be used as a tool to sustainably improve living conditions in partner countries.

Why data access matters: the NDC Explorer reveals new insights on national climate action plans

Pauw, Pieter / Kennedy Mbeva / Adis Dzebo (2017)
The Current Column, 16. January 2017

With the NDC Explorer, an online visualisation tool, we aim to create more transparency about countries’ ambitions and priorities.

For better or worse? The global data revolution

Keijzer, Niels / Stephan Klingebiel (2017)
The Current Column, 13. January 2017

At a time when most of us are having a quiet start to the year, cleaning up desks and refreshing to-do lists, a group of UN officials, South African statisticians and international partners are frantically working to finalise preparations for the first-ever UN World Data Summit.

Development Effectiveness: restoring the sense of urgency

Janus, Heiner / Niels Keijzer (2016)
The Current Column, 28. November 2016

On 28 November begins the second high-level meeting of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC) in Nairobi. When considering the future of effective development cooperation, we should start by appreciating the road it has travelled so far.

Climate conference in Marrakesh: litmus test for the Paris Agreement

Bauer, Steffen / Clara Brandi (2016)
The Current Column, 07. November 2016

The Paris Climate Agreement was hailed around the world as a historic achievement last December. Whether or not it makes history, however, depends on its successfull implementation. Being the first COP after the Paris summit in December 2015, the Marrakesh climate conference provides the first serious litmus test for the decisions reached in Paris.

Dealing with autocracies: do sustainable development goals help?

Striebinger, Kai / Julia Leininger (2016)
The Current Column, 19. September 2016

Transformation through rapprochement or rejection? Sanctions or dialogue? The recent events in Turkey and the general stagnation of democratisation processes worldwide raise a highly-charged question: how should European and German foreign, development and security policy react to autocratically-governed states?

Priority setting – or rather not? Positive concerns for SDGs

Samanta, Sayan (2016)
The Current Column, 12. September 2016

There is not much leeway to deny that we are living in the Anthropocene – the epoch in which human activity is primarily responsible for the changes in the Earth’s climate and biodiversity.

South-South co-operation: Words, just words?!

Grimm, Sven / Alexandra Rudolph (2016)
The Current Column, 01. August 2016

The United Nations Development Cooperation Forum (UNDCF) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) last week saw the discussion of a concept for measuring South-South co-operation (SSC). The objective is to determine the contribution of developing and emerging countries to the 2030 Agenda.

Fragmented development cooperation in the age of the 2030 Agenda

Klingebiel, Stephan / Timo Mahn / Mario Negre (2016)
The Current Column, 11. July 2016

Fragmentation is hugely relevant to the future of the 2030 Agenda. Intensive efforts to tackle the issue of fragmentation are the urgent order of the day.

Parallel worlds – conflicting goals: how arms policy is infiltrating the 2030 Agenda

Mehl, Regine (2016)
The Current Column, 30. May 2016

On 29 May, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon looked back on 60 years of armed UN peacekeeping missions. The first mission took place in May 1956 during the Suez Crisis. He also pointed out that this UN tool had received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988. These are two facts of which the general public is largely unaware.

A European narrative?

Kloke-Lesch, Adolf (2016)
The Current Column, 25. May 2016

In September 2015, the EU heads of state and government joined their colleagues from around the world to adopt the transformational project of the 2030 Agenda. The focus is now on putting it into practice.

Are results-based approaches key to implementing the 2030 Agenda in development cooperation?

Janus, Heiner / Stephan Klingebiel (2016)
The Current Column, 09. May 2016

At the heart of the major development policy events of 2016 lies the question: how can development cooperation provide targeted support for achieving the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the 2030 Agenda? A total of USD 132 billion was spent on official devel-opment assistance worldwide in 2015. While this fund-ing merely supplements other initiatives supporting the achievement of the SDGs in areas such as financial, trade and taxation policy, it still needs to be used as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Leave no one behind!

Crncic, Zeljko (2016)
The Current Column, 18. April 2016

Opportunities and limitations of the Agenda 2030 pledge to be inclusive

What does the Paris climate agreement mean for water policy?

Dombrowsky, Ines / Steffen Bauer / Waltina Scheumann (2016)
The Current Column, 22. March 2016

Nachhaltigkeit kein Thema – die EFI legt ihr Jahresgutachten vor

Messner, Dirk / Uwe Schneidewind (2016)
The Current Column, 26. February 2016

Letzte Woche präsentierte die Expertenkommission für Forschung und Innovation (EFI) ihr Jahresgutachten zur „Forschung, Innovation und technologischer Leistungsfähigkeit Deutschlands". Einen besonderen Schwerpunkt legt die EFI darin auf „Soziale Innovationen“ und damit auf ein zentrales Thema gesellschaftlicher Entwicklung. Das klingt viel-versprechend – doch der Report enttäuscht.

Inequality is bad for growth of the poor

Van der Weide, Roy / Branko Milanovic / Mario Negre (2016)
The Current Column, 23. February 2016

High levels of income inequality are associated with lower future growth rates for the poor and the middle class. No such negative correlation is found to hold for the rich, if anything, higher inequality is found to help their future growth prospects. In other words, highly unequal societies are found to stimulate the type of economic growth that further enhances inequality, at least in the United States for the time period under consideration.