Blog

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the River Nile has begun producing electricity for the first time. While supporters claim that the dam will make an important contribution to economic development in the country, the project has been at the centre of a 11-year-long dispute between Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sudan.

The COP26 conference marks a breakthrough in the discourse on climate change by addressing fossil fuel subsidies for the first time. Yet, environmental justice continues to be in the forefront of the climate debate.   

Urgent and ambitious climate mitigation and adaptation policies are needed to strengthen responses to climate change. What are the trade-offs between social and ecological objectives and outcomes of a green transformation for (dis)abled people?

India has made considerable progress in recent years towards bringing energy services to its citizens and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Two recent IEA reports shed light on the challenges ahead.

The Government of Norway recently launched a new action plan for climate adaptation and food security, building on the key principles of the 2030 Agenda.

Recent reports by V-Dem and Freedom House indicate that democracy is backsliding across the world. What does this tell us about democracy and sustainable development in 2021?

In this blog, Kristin Bergtora Sandvik and Ingunn Ikdahl argue that a framing of remote learning, connectivity, and access to hardware as the solutions to lockdown unduly privileges certain understandings of how children’s right to education are violated.

There are five key reasons why a small country like Norway would not do better on its own in the global vaccine race, write Antoine de Bengy Puyvallée and Katerini Storeng.

As much of climate change research in psychology is focused on individuals, we found the youth movement’s collective approach interesting. What motivated thousands of young people to strike for policy change and structural measures rather than individual measures?

A recent OECD report explores how the SDGs can be operationalised in a prosperous world. Norway's most populous county, Viken, recently implemented the SDGs in regional planning with good results. 

What does literature have to do with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)? This question can be answered in many ways, and literary scholars can provide a wide range of different responses. Literary fiction often addresses the most pressing and current issues, and so, literature can, and does, tell a great variety of stories mirroring the problems that we face today. However, literature is not only about what it tells, but also about how it tells it. As is clear from debates on climate change or the range of topics discussed in the current US presidential campaign, how we communicate to the rest of the world certainly affects what we do. In this blog, I would like to focus on one specific way that literary fiction can contribute to achieving the SDGs, namely through exploring the workings of our minds.

A group of Nordic researchers are appealing for support for the scholarly journal Economic & Political Weekly (EPW), which is struggling due to the current pandemic and nationwide lockdown in India.

There are numerous well-intentioned global efforts and development agendas and a multitude of stakeholders involved in saving lives as well as promoting long-term development in many developing countries. But what characterizes the relationship between good intentions and actually achieved results? How well are such activities coordinated? How effectively can external actors make a meaningful contribution to alleviating local problems? And most importantly, whose priorities do such interventions address, and to what extent are the so-called “beneficiaries” consulted?

In March and April 2020, an ecosystem of tracing apps suddenly emerged, presenting digital solutions as indispensable for winning the battle against Covid-19. 

This blog critically assesses the potential of legal tech for improving access to civil justice as measured by the new Sustainable Development Goals indicator 16.3.3.

'Critical junctures' are the scandals, crises or conflicts that can throw the status quo and power relations into the air, opening the door to previously unthinkable reforms. In Plagues and the Paradox of Progress, Thomas Bolloky argues that such events include health shocks: 'Encounters with infectious disease have played a key role in the evolution of cities, the expansion of trade routes, the conduct of war and participation in pilgrimages'.

Den såkalte «Bolivarianske revolusjonen» i Venezuela ble for 15 år siden fremmet som et eksempel på sosialisme for det 21ste århundre. Fremdeles omtales den sittende regjeringen under Nicolas Maduro, jevnlig som «sosialistisk». Men Venezuela er midt i en transisjon til en autoritær, desentralisert og voldelig form for kapitalisme, argumenterer jeg for i denne denne artikkelen som stod på trykk i Klassekampen 18. mars. 

On Wednesday the 4th of March, the Nordic Institute of Latin America Studies (NILAS) was inagurated in Stockholm. This is a 50-year old dream coming true. I will be the chair of the board. This is the speech I gave at the inaguration.

It is great to be back in Malawi, where there is considerable political excitement following a recent landmark ruling by the Constitutional court that has received massive attention in large parts of the world.

Managing an epidemic requires tackling the health consequences of the outbreak, as well as its social, political, security, and economic dimensions. This implies setting priorities and making trade-offs between various interests and goals – in short, a lot of politics.

The problem is enormous and growing. The evidence is compelling. Human activity, and our increased consumption of fossil fuels, has resulted in higher temperatures on earth. The best case scenarios of preventing a huge increase in global emissions of CO2 is already looking unrealistic.

Mega-quarantines, large hospitals built within a week, and sharing information with the global scientific community! The outbreak of the coronavirus (nCov2019) in China that has infected thousands of people and killed over 100, provides an illustrative example of the challenges facing the powerful Chinese state as it strives to contain the epidemic within its borders while limiting the effects of “stagflation” and further damage to its reputation abroad.

A little over a decade ago, there were widespread concerns over a major decline in global agricultural production and a corresponding rise in food prices. With the world’s largest share of arable land, Africa began to witness increased interest from foreign investors, who were optimistic of their ability to transform the continent’s agriculture sector while ensuring that their own countries would enjoy a steady supply of food. A decade later, and with hindsight, such ambitions appear to have been rather naïve.

Det har vært et dramatisk år i Latin-Amerika. Mediene har gitt intens dekning til hendelser i korte perioder, men fokus blir flyttet fort videre.  Her har jeg gjort et forsøk på å følge de viktigste historiene fra 2019, og si litt om hva vi kan vente av 2020.

Digital technologies are often embraced as the solution to global challenges within health and development, but rampant commercialisation and weak regulation challenge the ideal of digital public goods capable of reducing inequalities.