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81. Dossier 2: Cities Without Water

Author:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Publication Date:
03-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Abstract:
Water is a class issue. Its distribution has never been equitable. What the residents of Cape Town will struggle with is what more than one billion residents of informal settlements across the planet deal with each day. They too have little access to piped water and no sanitation system. They have to fetch water from afar and have to rely upon open fields to relieve themselves. What has already a afflicted the very poorest on the planet has now become a grave peril as it inflicts itself upon a major city. Our Dossier #2 looks closely at cities without water.
Topic:
Natural Resources, Water, Urban, and Cities
Political Geography:
Global Focus

82. Why We Urgently Need Water Policy Reforms

Author:
Mark Rosegrant and Claudia Ringler
Publication Date:
10-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Abstract:
Growing water scarcity and degradation pose rapidly growing challenges to global food security and human well-being. Policymakers contending with these problems face many obstacles, including the increasing cost of developing new water through constructing storage, conveyance and treatment infrastructure, including for desalination of sea water. Other obstacles include the growing degradation of soils in irrigated areas, expanding groundwater depletion, rapidly growing water pollution, and the overall deterioration of freshwater ecosystems. Unless important policy reforms are undertaken today, water scarcity and pollution will adversely affect most, if not all, livelihoods in the coming decades.
Topic:
Environment, Natural Resources, Water, Infrastructure, Reform, and Pollution
Political Geography:
Global Focus

83. 2017 Natural Resource Governance Index

Author:
Natural Resource Governance Institute
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Natural Resource Governance Institute
Abstract:
This report presents the key findings and core messages of the 2017 Resource Governance Index. The index measures the quality of resource governance in 81 countries that together produce 82 percent of the world’s oil, 78 percent of its gas and a significant proportion of minerals, including 72 percent of all copper. It is the product of 89 country assessments (eight countries were assessed in two sectors), compiled by 150 researchers, using almost 10,000 supporting documents to answer 149 questions
Topic:
International Security and Natural Resources
Political Geography:
Global Focus

84. Mine the (Development) Gap? A Case Study

Author:
Lauren Konken and Geneva List
Publication Date:
01-2016
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Institute for the Study of International Development, McGill University (ISID)
Abstract:
How can strategic partnerships shape the lives and economic opportunities of communities surrounding large-scale mining operations? The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Anglo American PLC, and TechnoServe have pioneered a pilot partnership to implement a regional development plan that leverages the resources and skills of each contributing partner. The project, Beyond Extraction: Economic Opportunities in Communities Hosting Mining Operations, develops a flexible multifaceted program based on three pillars – local procurement, workforce development, and local government capacity building. From this systemic approach, onthe-ground operations will be tailored to the needs of local municipalities surrounding select Anglo American mining operations in each participating country. Each initiative builds on nearly a decade of program conceptualization and implementation through a pre-existing partnership between Anglo American and TechnoServe, combining lessons learned and resources from four enterprise development programs that have been executed collaboratively since 2006. Overall this new strategic partnership serves to elevate and expand Anglo American’s core business practices with the goal of developing local mining communities in ways that ensure sustainability and productivity beyond the lifespan of their mining operations in the region. In this case study we discuss the development of this strategic partnership as well as the challenges it has faced prior to its approval by the IDB in the summer of 2016. Within the context of global mining operations and the subnational regions in which it plans to operate, we analyze how the program goes beyond corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a public private partnership for development (PPPD). As the IDB develops an agenda for work within the extractives sector, this pilot builds on major corporate-bank partnerships surrounding large scale mining operations with a regional focus. The project serves as a precedent and key learning exercise from a multinational perspective for all partners involved as to the challenges and opportunities of strategic partnerships in the extractive sector.
Topic:
Development, Natural Resources, Mining, and Banking
Political Geography:
South America, North America, and Global Focus

85. A Smarter Dimension of a New Universal Climate Agreement?

Author:
Katarína Hazuchová
Publication Date:
01-2016
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Global Political Trends Center (GPoT)
Abstract:
As the world approaches the middle of this century, the narratives of natural resources’ management are being newly defined, aiming to converge into new, “smarter” means of prosperity, which recognizes and integrates climate change related risks. The impacts of climate change are easily seen by the naked eye, as the ice sheets are melting ever faster, acidification of the oceans is increasing, sea level rises and extreme weather events brings casualties and economic loss around the globe. However, the means of how countries and markets have been willing or reluctant to cooperate on climate change in the context of making changes to sovereign resource management is significant. The transition to low-carbon, cleaner economies is driven by two rationales: the first objective is not to increase the world temperature by more than 2 ⁰C by the end of the century, upgrading to 1,5 ⁰C; and the second is to plan how to do so smoothly through world-wide de-carbonization. The uncertainties and fears surrounding “transformation” determine, to a certain extent, the voluntary nature of some new aspects of the current climate change regime.
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, Treaties and Agreements, and Natural Resources
Political Geography:
Global Focus

86. Efficiency, Finance, and Varieties of Industrial Policy: Guiding Resources, Learning, and Technology for Sustained Growth

Author:
Akbar Norman and Joseph E. Stiglitz
Publication Date:
11-2016
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Columbia University Press
Abstract:
Industrial policy, once relegated to resource allocation, technological improvements, and the modernization of industries, should be treated as a serious component of sustainability and developmental economics. A rich set of complimentary institutions, shared behavioral norms, and public policies have sustained economic growth from Britain's industrial revolution onwards. This volume revisits the role of industrial policy in the success of these strategies and what it can offer developed and developing economies today. Featuring essays from experts invested in the expansion of industrial policies, topics discussed include the most effective use of industrial policies in learning economies, development finance, and promoting investment in regional and global contexts. Also included are in-depth case studies of Japan and India's experience with industrial policy in the banking and private sector. One essay revisits the theoretical and conceptual foundations of industrial policy from a structural economics perspective and another describes the models, packages, and transformation cycles that constitute a variety of approaches to implementation. The collection concludes with industrial strategies for facilitating quality growth, realizing more sustainable manufacturing development, and encouraging countries to industrialize around their natural resources.
Topic:
Economics, Industrial Policy, Natural Resources, and Finance
Political Geography:
Global Focus
Publication Identifier:
9780231542777
Publication Identifier Type:
ISBN

87. Developing the Blue Economy in Caribbean and Other Small States

Author:
Cyrus Rustomjee
Publication Date:
03-2016
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)
Abstract:
The world’s oceans are crucial to human life. They cover 71 percent of the earth’s surface and contain 97 percent of the earth’s water (Oceanic Institute 2016); provide vital ecosystem services; serve as a growing source of renewable energy and make crucial contributions to global food production and food security, through the provision of food, minerals and nutrients. Fish provide 4.3 billion people with about 15 percent of their intake of animal protein (UN Food and Agriculture Organization [FAO] 2014b). Over 3.1 billion people live within 100 km of the ocean or sea in about 150 coastal and island nations (FAO 2014a), and global ocean economic activity is estimated to be US$3–5 trillion (FAO 2014b). Oceans and seas serve as waterways for global trade, with more than 90 percent of global trade carried by sea (International Maritime Organization 2012). Some 880 million people depend on the fisheries and aquaculture sector for their livelihoods (ibid.). Recognition of the services and resources provided by oceans has accelerated in recent years, spurred by the opportunities and challenges posed by a rapidly growing global population, increasing global demand for food and energy, advances in technology, and changes in patterns of global trade and human consumption. Developed countries have expanded fisheries, tourism and other oceanic and maritime industries; extended mineral exploration and extraction; and scaled up ocean-related scientific, technological and industrial research. Using increased knowledge of marine biodiversity, they have developed new value chains in pharmaceuticals, health care and aquaculture; and many have established integrated national ocean economy strategies, bringing together the regulatory, environmental, spatial, policy, institutional, industrial and other factors influencing their ability to exploit maritime resources.
Topic:
Environment, Political Economy, Maritime Commerce, Biosecurity, and Natural Resources
Political Geography:
Caribbean and Global Focus

88. Assessing the Governance Practices of Sustainability Reporting

Author:
Jason Thistlewaite and Melissa Menzies
Publication Date:
01-2016
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)
Abstract:
To promote climate change risk mitigation in financial markets, the Financial Stability Board (FSB) recently proposed the creation of a Climate Disclosure Task Force, coordinated through the G20, to develop standards for companies to disclose their exposure to climate change risks. With more than 400 existing disclosure schemes that employ a range of different standards to measure climate change risks and corporate sustainability, this task will be challenging. But the diversity of schemes also represents an opportunity to assess which practices are effective at improving corporate accountability for sustainability performance, as well as efficient at producing comparable reports that do not unfairly burden reporting organizations. This brief identifies the key categories of governance practices that must be addressed, how these divergent practices challenge end-users, and how the establishment of criteria that define effective and efficient reporting is a critical first step for the FSB and its Climate Disclosure Task Force.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, Natural Resources, Governance, G20, Regulation, and Financial Markets
Political Geography:
Global Focus

89. Linkages to the Resource Sector: The Role of Companies, Governments, and International Development Cooperation

Author:
Columbia Centre on Sustainable Investment
Publication Date:
07-2016
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
With support from GIZ, CCSI prepared a report titled “Linkages to the Resource Sector: The Role of Companies, Governments, and International Development Cooperation.” It outlines options for how these stakeholders can increase the economic linkages to the extractive industries sector not only in terms of ‘breadth’ (number of linkages) but also in terms of ‘depth’ (local value added). Apart from providing the theoretical framework for linkage creation and an overview of existing literature on this topic, the study highlights successful case study examples. Recommendations are provided for the three types of stakeholders.
Topic:
Government, International Political Economy, and Natural Resources
Political Geography:
Global Focus

90. Data Intelligence for 21st Century Water Management: A Report from the 2015 Aspen-Nicholas Water Forum

Author:
Dave Grossman, Martin Doyle, and Nicole Buckley
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
The 2015 Aspen-Nicholas Water Forum, brings together each year a select group of water experts with diverse knowledge - from finance and policy to technology and ecosystems - to explore the future of our water system; the role of corporations and municipalities in managing water risk; and the innovations in, and convergence of, water policy, finance, and technology to identify potential game changers. The forum this year specifically focused on water and big data to understand how the emergence of large, but dispersed, amounts of data in the water sector can best be utilized to improve the management and delivery of water for a more sustainable future. Understanding what water data we have, how we collect it, and how to standardize and integrate it may well be a prerequisite to taking action to address a wide range of water challenges.
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, Science and Technology, Natural Resources, Water, and Global Markets
Political Geography:
Global Focus