The report indicates that global foreign direct investment (FDI) flows in 2011 surpassed the pre-crisis average – reaching US$1.5 trillion, despite persistent uncertainty in the global economy. However, flows still remained more than 20 per cent below their 2007 peak.
Even in countries with rapidly growing economies, large number of people still resort to open defecation: 626 million in India, 14 million in China & 7 million in Brazil finds this 2012 report which assesses the regional progress on eight MDGs.
Difficulties in raising sufficient domestic and external resources to finance the internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), along with the numerous drawbacks of traditional aid, are leading the quest for innovative sources of development finance.
This paper outlines the extent and severity of Punjab’s water crisis, and outlines the results of a field study to help farmers irrigate rice more efficiently. The paper then focuses on the application of the tensiometer, a simple device that had the most promising results in helping farmers save water.
The 2012 Study on Forest Financing expands and updates the 2008 study and provides a systematic and objective analysis of funding sources and gaps among and within thematic areas, geographic regions, country groups and individual countries, through a review of existing, emerging and evolving funding sources and mechanisms.
The UN Global Compact released a report, Scaling Up Global Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture, in advance of the Rio+20 Corporate Sustainability Forum, to be held 15-18 June 2012 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Since 1991, UNDP-GEF’s International Waters Programme has been supporting over one hundred countries that share some of the world’s largest and most important aquatic ecosystems to work cooperatively in addressing the agreed priority environmental and water resource concerns facing such waterbodies.
The growing risks and impacts of climate change and the accompanying loss of ecosystem services require the world to urgently invest in a new development paradigm.
Mining firms in India employ hundreds of thousands of people and are seen as central for rapid economic growth. But mining can be a uniquely destructive industry if it is not properly regulated.
