POLICY BRIEFINGS, TESTIMONY & PRESENTATIONS
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July 2012
"The Durban Platform Negotiations: Goals and Options"
In December 2011, parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, which launched a new round of negotiations aimed at developing "a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force" for the post-2020 period. The Durban Platform negotiations got underway this year and are scheduled to conclude in 2015. This Viewpoint analyzes the elements of the Durban Platform and the possible role that a new instrument might play.
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June 23, 2011
"Agricultural Biotechnology: Benefits, Opportunities, and Leadership"
By Calestous Juma, Professor of the Practice of International Development; Director, Science, Technology, and Globalization Project; Principal Investigator, Agricultural Innovation in Africa
"The United States has been a leading light in agricultural biotechnology as a platform technology and continues to serve as an important role model for countries around the seeking to address global food challenges. A key source of this leadership has been its commitment to using a science-led regulatory system for determining the approval of new products. The rest of the world needs this demonstrated leadership now more than ever given rising food prices and related political unrests around the world. Failure on the part of the United States to champion agricultural biotechnology will undermine confidence in the ability of the global community to confront the challenges of food security. Retracting from using science and technology to address emerging challenges will not result in any savings; it will only defer problems and future costs are likely to be higher."
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January 2011
"Africa Can Feed Itself in a Generation"
By Calestous Juma, Professor of the Practice of International Development; Director, Science, Technology, and Globalization Project; Principal Investigator, Agricultural Innovation in Africa
African agriculture is at a crossroads. Persistent food shortages are now being compounded by new threats arising from climate change. But Africa also has three major opportunities that can help transform its agriculture to be a force for economic growth. First, advances in science, technology, and engineering worldwide offer Africa new tools needed to promote sustainable agriculture. Second, efforts to create regional markets will provide new incentives for agricultural production and trade. Third, a new generation of African leaders is helping the continent focus on long-term economic transformation.
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December 2010
"Energy Innovation Policy in Major Emerging Countries"
By Ruud Kempener, Former Research Fellow, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group, 2009–2011, Laura Diaz Anadon, Associate Director, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program; Director, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group; Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy and Jose Condor Tarco, Former Research Fellow, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group, 2008–2009
New Harvard Kennedy School research finds that energy research, development, and demonstration (ERD&D) funding by governments and 100 percent government-owned enterprises in six major emerging economies appears larger than government spending on ERD&D in most industrialized countries combined. That makes the six so-called BRIMCS countries—Brazil, Russia, India, Mexico, China, and South Africa—major players in the development of new energy technologies. It also suggests there could be opportunities for cooperation on energy technology development among countries.
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February 2010
"Climate Change Policies: Many Paths Forward"
By Paula J. Dobriansky, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and Vaughan C. Turekian
The current global economic crisis highlights the fact that environmental objectives exist in a balance with economic growth, a balance that political leaders struggle to find in their own countries and at the global level. The UNFCCC contributes importantly to achieving a healthy balance by providing an overall framework for action to address climate change and as a regular gathering point for diplomats, policymakers, and technical experts from the widest range of countries. As such, it is a unique forum for building partnerships to help countries meet their own national objectives and to forge the consensus needed for success in global efforts to address climate change. It could also help to coordinate international efforts, creating synergies, and avoiding duplication.
November 2009
"Climate Finance"
By The Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements
The finance of climate mitigation and adaptation in developing countries represents a key challenge in the negotiations on a post-2012 international climate agreement. Finance mechanisms are important because stabilizing the climate will require significant emissions reductions in both the developed and the developing worlds, and therefore large-scale investments in energy infrastructure. The current state of climate finance has been criticized for its insufficient scale, relatively low share of private-sector investment, and insufficient institutional framework. This policy brief presents options for improving and expanding climate finance.
October 6, 2008
The 2008 Ibrahim Index of African Governance
By Robert Rotberg, Director, Program on Intrastate Conflict and Conflict Resolution and Rachel Gisselquist, Former Research Director (2007-2009), Index of African Governance
Small states, island states, and Botswana, and South Africa are the best governed countries in sub-Saharan Africa according to this year’s Index of African Governance
October 23, 2007
"Africa in the Age of Rapid Technological Change"
By Calestous Juma, Professor of the Practice of International Development; Director, Science, Technology, and Globalization Project; Principal Investigator, Agricultural Innovation in Africa
As part of International Relations Week at Harvard, Calestous Juma, director of the Belfer Center's Science, Technology, and Globalization Project, delivered the keynote address on Tuesday, Oct. 23, at the Center for Government and International Studies.
June 11, 2007
China: Good or Evil in Africa?
By Robert Rotberg, Director, Program on Intrastate Conflict and Conflict Resolution
China is transforming Africa, for good and ill. The United States and other traditional trading and aid partners of Africa need to pay closer attention than they are, and with Africans craft bold new policies that welcome Chinese investment and trade but condemn the taking of African jobs and the destruction of African industries. Click here to read the full text, which discusses China’s emerging controversial role in Africa as investor, trader, buyer, and aid donor.
November 2006
Will the Oil Boom Solve the Middle East Unemployment Crisis
During the recent oil boom the MENA region has seen job creation accelerate' given favorable economic prospects going forward, the region could see unemployment decline to nearly 7 percent by 2010
