If the midyear talks on the road to the U.N. Climate Change Conference in November are anything to go by, we’re in for one bumpy ride.
Also in today’s edition: USAID agrees to a big extension, and the U.K.’s Labour Party may be agreeing too much with its rivals.
Negotiations at the annual U.N. Climate Conferences, or COPs, can be a herculean, tortuous, and tense affair — did I use enough adjectives there? Needless to say, they’re hard. So it’s not too surprising that midyear talks on the road to COP are usually littered with landmines as well.
Such was the case as U.N. member states concluded their recent gathering in Bonn, Germany, where they were tasked with hashing out the technical details of the political decisions that must be made at COP 29 in Azerbaijan. Climate finance was top of mind, although many of the same friction points that have bedeviled past negotiations resurfaced.
Much of this friction boils down to something called the new collective quantified goal, or NCQG — get ready to hear that rolls-off-your-tongue acronym a lot in the coming months. Basically, it’s the amount of money developing countries are asking their wealthier counterparts to shell out to help them deal with climate change.
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Except there’s nothing basic about it, as evidenced by the sharp divides that emerged in Bonn. Developing countries demanded that the new goal be made up of public money, in the form of grants and not loans, with clear progress in discussing an actual figure.
In contrast, donor countries tried to expand the base of contributors to include other nations — specifically China — and the private sector. In addition, they tried to limit the destination of monetary aid to the most vulnerable countries and didn’t propose a specific sum. Don’t worry, the African group and the Arab group did, in the range of $1.1 trillion to $1.3 trillion per year.
“Across the board, negotiation tracks nearly ran off the rails with rich countries blocking the finance needed to make climate action happen,” Teresa Anderson of ActionAid International tells Devex contributing reporter Tais Gadea Lara. “Developing countries have been carrying the costs of the climate crisis, and their patience is now stretched beyond bearing.”
Simon Stiell, head of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, also didn’t sugarcoat it at the closing plenary: “I can say that we've taken modest steps forward here in Bonn. But we took a detour on the road to Baku. Too many issues were left unresolved. Too many items are still on the table.”
Read: As UN warns of ‘detour’ midway to COP 29, where are climate talks at? (Pro)
ICYMI: Why climate finance is at heart of key UN conference (Pro)
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USAID’s largest-ever contract — a global health supply chain effort called NextGen that’s worth roughly $17 billion — will actually consist of 11 smaller contracts, in contrast to the current iteration, which consists of one big lump contract that’s been led by Chemonics International since 2016.
But it seems like change doesn’t come easy, my colleague Michael Igoe writes.
USAID has decided to extend the current portion of the project that handles HIV commodities for an additional two years and roughly $2 billion more in funding. It will also keep Chemonics at the helm until November 2026. For those counting, that new timeline means the transition from the current supply chain project to NextGen will likely span three presidential terms of office.
The extension reflects USAID’s cautious approach to transitioning current contracts to new ones — but Atul Gawande, the agency’s assistant administrator for global health, says it’s vital to keep critical supplies flowing during such a complex handover.
“If the flow of life-saving commodities or the provision of supply chain technical assistance is suspended without a viable alternative,” he wrote, “millions of people living with HIV will not have access to antiretroviral treatment, pre-exposure prophylaxis, essential medicines, and diagnostic and testing tools for viral load and early infant diagnostics.”
Read: USAID extends HIV supply chain project by two years (PRO)
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Speaking of change not being easy, questions are swirling whether the U.K. Labour Party — expected to emerge victorious in the country’s July 4 election — will usher in a departure in development policy from the ruling Conservatives.
As much as Labour’s leaders have noisily condemned how the country’s “world-leading expertise in international development” has been “degraded” by 14 years of Conservative rule, Labour is offering “consensus” in most areas, according to two experts who spoke at a recent Devex Pro Live event.
That event was held before Labour published its manifesto, but our experts correctly predicted the big ticket announcements: No restoration of the dedicated Department for International Development, or DFID, which was axed in 2020, and that the U.K.’s massive aid budget cuts will only be reversed when “fiscal circumstances allow” — echoing the nebulous pledge made by Conservatives, my colleague Rob Merrick writes.
One silver lining is that when Andrew Mitchell, the current Conservative international development minister, published his strategy paper last November, he took the highly unusual approach of inviting Labour to help him write it — to ensure its lasting impact.
Olivia O’Sullivan of the Chatham House think tank said that means the Mitchell blueprint “has been successful because it’s hit on or revived areas of consensus for some parts of U.K. politics on development.”
UK election coverage: New development 'consensus' hides big challenges ahead (Pro)
ICYMI: Labour rules out aid department or early return to 0.7% (Pro)
“Moderna, Pfizer, and BioNTech were calling the shots — making $1,000 a second from vaccines that were developed with public money, building on years of work from scientists at public institutions.”
— Winnie Byanyima, executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, and Max Lawson, co-chair of the People’s Medicines AllianceIn an opinion piece for Devex, Byanyima and Lawson write that this “vast power imbalance created nine new pharmaceutical billionaires in a matter of months, while many of the world’s poorest died without vaccines.”
To counter what they call the “scourge of greed, nationalism, and profiteering,” the People’s Medicines Alliance was formed to speak up “against the devastating impact pharmaceutical monopolies are having on people’s lives and demanding that their governments take action.”
“Continuing with the status quo in which where one lives decides whether one should live or die cannot be seen as an option. It is profoundly immoral, irrational, and economically suicidal.”
Opinion: Pharma profiteering isn’t going away, and so we can’t either
I have several thousand LinkedIn connections. I admit that in the beginning, I had no idea what to do with them. Is it appropriate or annoying to reach out personally? How often should I comment on their posts? Do I accept requests from people I’ve never even heard of?
During a recent Devex Career event, development career coach Simone Anzböck said that before you start trying to master LinkedIn, ask yourself: “What's your objective that you think LinkedIn is the answer for?” This matters because someone looking to be a thought leader in their industry will take a different approach to someone looking for a new job, she said.
Among the tips she suggests: Make sure your profile is communicating what you want it to.
“Your profile is your shop window. So that means, who do you want to attract to your shop?” Anzböck said. That includes your profile’s all-important headline, your headshot, and a clear, compelling “about” section. Consider the action that “you want people to take when they come to your profile.”
Read: 3 tips for connecting with development professionals on LinkedIn (Career)
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A new nontraditional model of drug discovery and development could be a game changer against antimicrobial resistance. [Harvard Public Health]
A U.N. report found that none of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals is on track to be achieved by 2030. [Reuters]
EU countries approved a flagship nature restoration law requiring revival measures for one-fifth of their land and sea areas by 2030, the first major green policy passed after the recent EU elections. [VOA]
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