Climate change and biodiversity

In April 2007, on my first day as vice president at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in Washington D.C., I received an informal visit from Thomas E. Lovejoy, a celebrated American environmental scientist who died last year. He spoke to me of a “turning point” in deforestation in the Amazon, beyond which the consequences would be irreversible. He was interested in knowing how the IDB could help in the fight against deforestation. Thomas and the Brazilian environmental scien ...

Mauritius was on the brink of disintegration in the 1980s, but by 2019 had managed a peaceful transformation from a low income, monocrop, inward-oriented economy to a diversified, outward-oriented, upper middle-income country. Mauritius is now again at a crossroads, having to adapt to accelerating climate change and the impacts of multiple crises. The government of Mauritius has a vision of transforming the country into a knowledge-intensive and inclusive economy of the Fourth Indu ...

La plupart des écosystèmes arides et semi-arides d’Afrique sont dédiés à différents types d’élevage extensif. Ces systèmes sont des acteurs majeurs dans la valorisation des espaces, et des ressources naturelles. En plus de nourrir les humains et les animaux, l’élevage pastoral fournit un revenu de subsistance à des populations qui ne pourraient survivre autrement dans ces régions. Ce pastoralisme est menacé depuis plusieurs années. Dans la quasi-totalité des zones agro ...

Humanity is losing the climate battle, and existing international institutions are not delivering on climate change. Hence, there is a need for a new international institution that would be a repository for global knowledge on climate change, and would advise governments on climate policies, develop green projects across the Global South, mobilize financing for those projects, and support project implementation. The proposed Green Bank would be different from existing multilateral d ...

La double crise actuelle de l’énergie et du conflit militaire en Ukraine freine énormément les processus qui se développaient dans l’ère post-Covid 19. Dans ce contexte fragile et tourmenté, la vulnérabilité touche également les chaînes globales de valeur et les systèmes agroalimentaires. La vulnérabilité de la Chaîne Globale de Valeur (GVC) est une fonction de la capacité d’adaptation (CA) face aux chocs et aux impacts potentiels que présentent la fragmentation du ...

This year, the Conference of the Parties (COP27) will be held in in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. On the outset of this auspicious occasion, it is befitting to reflect upon contemporary climate adaptation and mitigation policies, from a southern and African point of view. Indeed, climate change is one of the stickiest policy problems of the 21st century, because it is inherently a global and multidimensional problem entailing a bundle of policy features. Following the consecutives shocks ...

The sixth African Peace and Security Annual Conference (APSACO) was held on July 20-21, 2022, under the theme 'African Security in Times of Uncertainties'. The two-day event was composed of five panels and one report discussion.  • Panel 1: The Impact of the Russia-Ukraine War on Africa • Panel 2: Conflict Resolution and w in Africa • Panel 3: The Worsening of the Food-Security Challenge in Africa • Panel 4: Security Implications of Climate Change in Africa • Panel 5: African F ...

Les énergies fossiles (pétrole, charbon, gaz naturel) ne sont plus à la mode, compte tenu de leur très importante responsabilité dans le changement climatique. Les appels en vue de leur disparition (progressive) se multiplient mais ces combustibles représentent encore un peu plus de 80 % de la consommation mondiale d’énergie primaire (83 % en 2021, selon la BP Statistical Review of World Energy). Et de nombreux projets sont en cours de développement à travers le monde. En Afrique, l ...