I try to keep up to date on developments and trends on a variety of international development topics – my ties to the Pacific mean that I spend a significant amount of time exploring ideas and opportunities around climate resilience. So there’s a backlog of articles on the topic bookmarked on my computer. This morning …
The world is up in arms – as it should be – about the chaotic and damaging path that the new US President is taking. It is terrifying but we saw it coming. Leopards don’t change their spots, as they say. Who is pulling the strings, who makes the decisions? There are a plethora of …
Continue reading ‘Let’s Not Get Distracted: Climate Change is Still the Biggest Threat’ »
It’s full speed ahead on building capacity for resilience to climate change and other shocks like earthquakes and droughts and flooding. It’s the thing that everyone (ie: the development community and donors) wants to be good at, known for. Because of course. Of course no one in a country vulnerable to climate change, on the …
Continue reading ‘‘Autonomous Adaptation’ – Have We Logframed Ourselves into a Corner?’ »
In a follow-up to our post last week on ‘Never Again,’ let’s talk about climate migration. Currently, there are climate migrants, but as climate change intensifies, the trickle of migrants will turn into a flood of refugees, particularly from the countries and regions most vulnerable to climate change. These are not necessarily regions prone to …
Continue reading ‘Climate Migration – Prepare Now or React Later?’ »
In a recent article, I highlighted an issue that I feel needs more discussion and examination. I was writing about development jargon and the topic of resilience came up. In the article, I noted that I had recently learned that the concept of resilience was understood differently at the community level in a country which …
Continue reading ‘Resilience: Locally Owned or Locally Grown?’ »
Following the COP21 in December 2015, the Pacific islands have a chance at survival in the face of an increasingly changing climate. Along with other small islands and highly vulnerable states, Pacific island advocacy achieved concessions to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celcius in the outcome document, the Paris Agreement. It is a huge …
Continue reading ‘Governance and the Survival of the Pacific Islands’ »
There are a lot of studies doing the rounds that highlight a major problem with development financing – it takes ages to actually spend the money that is donated. This is particularly true for financing that is channelled through government public financial management systems to support public serivce delivery such as health care, education, infrastructure …
Recently, the President of the Asian Development Bank, Takehiko Nakao, published an editorial in which he stated “The Asia-Pacific region currently generates 37 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.” (Read the full editorial here ). This is blatantly wrong. Asia (and even then not all of it, as it is a massive region) generates 37 percent of …
We have been reading headlines on the number of refugees and displaced people (33 million worldwide) for months now, and many updates and commentaries on the process and progress of the World Humanitarian Summit, tasked with idenitfying, through global consultation, how to ‘fix’ an overwhelmed humanitarian and emergency response system. Beyond the fact that it …
Continue reading ‘Addressing Global Crises with ‘Blinders’ On’ »
It is entirely unfortunate that the recent Pacific Islands Forum was held only days before Australia’s lackluster prime minister, Tony Abbott, was ousted from power. Not that the new prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, would necessarily have had a radically different impact on the outcome of the Forum, but one can hope that he would have …
Continue reading ‘The Limits of Climate Change for Small Island States’ »
