INVESTMENT FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: PROMOTING QUALITY FDI. By Annie Dufey. International Institute for Environment and Development, December 2006. Foreign direct investment (FDI) is considered to be a major catalyst in promoting sustainable development in developing countries. Benefits associated with FDI include economic growth and increased income, employment, and technology transfer. Liberalisation policies have led to rapid growth in FDI flows in recent years. But not all countries have succeeded in attracting FDI, and for some who have, FDI has not brought the expected benefits to their economies. FDI can have negative impacts on sustainable development, such as environmental degradation, poor labour standards, crowding-out of domestic companies, and corruption. Thus recent approaches to FDI have focused on the quality of FDI rather than the quantity. But the notion of "quality" FDI is still narrow and focuses on the economic rather than the environmental and social dimensions of sustainable development. This paper discusses the main elements required for policies aimed at attracting quality FDI, and for providing a supporting framework for effective foreign corporate, social and environmental responsibility. For more information on how to access this book, please visit http://www.iied.org/pubs/display.php?o=15505IIED&n=1&l=6&a=A%20Dufey&x=Y.
AGROECOLOGY AND THE STRUGGLE FOR FOOD SOVEREIGNTY IN THE AMERICAS. Edited by Avery Cohn, Jonathan Cook, Margarita Fernandez , Rebecca Reider and Corrina Steward. International Institute for Environment and Development, IUCN Commission on Environmental Economic and Social Policy, and Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, 2006. This book explores emerging alliances among farmer organizations, environmentalists, and scholars working to promote ecologically sound and economically just food and agricultural systems across the Americas. It features articles and policy recommendations by various scholars working at the intersections of conservation, trade, and agriculture; interviews with leaders of national, regional, and local farmer organizations; case studies of efforts to promote both food sovereignty and ecologically sound farming systems across the Americas; and reports on the 2004 workshop "Food Sovereignty, Conservation, and Social Movements for Sustainable Agriculture in the Americas". To access this book, visit http://www.yale.edu/environment/publications.
ENERGY AND CLIMATE — A CONTRIBUTION TO THE DIALOGUE ON LONG TERM COOPERATIVE ACTION. By the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, November 2006. This document offers some initial thinking of possible options for action on climate change within a revised framework after 2012. Such a revised framework would learn and build from existing international agreements and incorporate new long-term goals. To access this document, visit http://www.wbcsd.org/Plugins/DocSearch/details.asp?DocTypeId=25&ObjectId=MjE0OTM&URLBack=%2Ftemplates%2FTemplateWBCSD2%2Flayout%2Easp%3Ftype%3Dp%26MenuId%3DODU%26doOpen%3D1%26ClickMenu%3DRightMenu.
TRADE CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT FOR AFRICA: POLICY ISSUES FOR AFRICAN COUNTRIES IN MULTILATERAL AND REGIONAL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS. By the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), 2006. This publication, the third in the Trade Negotiations and Africa series, contains a paper on the interface between negotiations under the WTO Doha agenda, the ACP-EU economic partnership agreements, and African regional integration processes. It aims at facilitating informed decision-making by African countries in drawing positive benefits from their participation in multiple international trade negotiations and agreements, and by making these processes development-oriented in reflecting the needs and interests of African countries. To access this paper, visit http://www.unctad.org/en/docs/ditctncd20066_en.pdf.