Photo: Landscape

Japan’s climate coalition? – Tokyo’s green chequebook diplomacy campaign is gathering momentum

Addressing a Davos audience last year, in January 2022, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida publicly declared his vision for an Asia Zero Emissions Community (AZEC). Under Tokyo’s leadership, Kishida said, AZEC would drive regional cooperation and joint financing on renewable energy technologies and infrastructure, standardisation, and an emissions trading zone. A year on, Prime Minister…

Photo: European Parliament, Plenar hall.

The (un)intended effects of EU development cooperation on democracy

By CherryX per Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 The EU has long prided itself on being a leading supporter of international democratic change. Its development cooperation budget for the period 2021-2027 has allocated €1.5 billion for a dedicated ‘Thematic Programme on Human Rights and Democracy’. The EU has also joined forces with several of its…

Photo: View from a sailboat, We cannot assume that “we are all in the same boat”, even though we are all facing the same storm.

Zeitenwende – Investing in competencies for transnational cooperation

Russia’s attack on Ukraine has put into sometimes sharp relief the different perspectives of inter- and transnational cooperation. The violation of the rules-based order after WWII caused shockwaves, specifically in Europe. Experiences of partners in, say, Africa or Asia with this international order historically differ from the European ones; consequently, even if we might share…

Photo: Cubes of some sustainable development goals with people in the background, Global Festival of Action for Sustainable Development - Day 3

The 2030 Agenda: It’s Governance

In the last couple of years, the reassessment of the Sustainable Development Agenda has become more relevant. As the world enters a new phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, characterised by lower numbers of infections and deaths, the apparition of new variants of the virus, and considerable economic and social challenges, several issues have become more…