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The Netherlands maintains a foreign policy focused on internal European integration and a selective, value-added approach to African development. It is a significant global donor of Official Development Assistance (ODA), pledging at least 50% of its bilateral budget to Africa, with priority given to the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes region. The document highlights the Netherlands' role in promoting African priorities within the EU and its long-standing historical, economic, and defense ties with South Africa.

Benin has significantly increased the ambition of its NDCs between 2015 and 2021, targeting a 20.15% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 across the energy, agricultural, forestry, and waste sectors. While these goals align with national priorities like food security and electricity access, the paper finds a lack of integration between the NDCs and the government's COVID-19 macroeconomic recovery response. The author recommends aligning monetary policy and credit expansion with climate goals to leverage private sector investment and ensure long-term sustainable growth.

The document analyzes the macroeconomic resilience of Kenya and Tanzania from 2000 to 2022, examining the impacts of climate-related shocks, the global financial crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic. It finds that while both countries used prudent monetary and fiscal policies, Tanzania exhibited less volatility in GDP per capita growth and maintained higher gross savings. The paper recommends simplifying tax systems, reducing non-concessional borrowing, and leveraging the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to enhance resilience.

The report examines the South African mining industry's decline, highlighted by the Marikana shootings, and argues that structural issues—including regulatory uncertainty, failing social and labour plans, and 'narrow' BEE policies—undermine investor confidence and social stability. It proposes adopting the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights, replacing Social and Labour Plans with Community Development Agreements, and reforming BEE to benefit workers and communities rather than a small elite. The author warns that the ANC's proposed 'strategic nationalisation' of minerals like platinum and coal, as suggested in the SIMS report, could further jeopardise economic growth and exacerbate social conflict.

Belgium prioritizes Central Africa, particularly the DRC, Rwanda, and Burundi, in its foreign policy, providing significant development aid and security support. The country maintains a strong economic partnership with South Africa, characterized by high trade volumes and foreign direct investment. While Belgium focuses on sustainable development and peace-making in the Great Lakes region, its broader Africa policy is selective, concentrating resources on a limited number of partner states.

The report details France's transition from a neo-colonial 'policeman' of francophone Africa to a more diversified continental strategy that prioritizes economic interests and partnerships with non-franc zone powers like South Africa. It examines the shift from direct military intervention to supporting African-owned peacekeeping, the contradictions in French development aid versus its Common Agricultural Policy, and the growth of bilateral trade and investment between France and South Africa.

The report investigates the captive predator breeding industry in South Africa, specifically focusing on lions. It challenges industry claims of economic significance and conservation value, arguing that the industry relies on deceptive marketing to attract volunteer tourists and supplies the 'canned hunting' and lion bone trades. The author contends that the industry lacks scientific grounding, suffers from genetic inbreeding, and may facilitate organised crime through the legal export of lion skeletons to Asia. The paper suggests that the opportunity costs—including damage to South Africa's tourism brand and the loss of potential jobs from ethical ecotourism—outweigh the industry's private returns, recommending a move toward a zero export quota for lion derivatives.

The report examines the AfCFTA's potential to create a single market of 1.2 billion people and $2 trillion GDP, highlighting its goals to boost intra-African trade and harmonise trade governance. It details key investor considerations, including the continued relevance of Regional Economic Communities (RECs), tariff phase-down schedules, and the impact of non-tariff barriers and rules of origin. The document specifically analyses the Republic of Korea's trade and investment profile in Africa, noting a heavy reliance on natural resource imports and a relatively low FDI stock compared to other global powers. It suggests that Korean firms can find opportunities in manufacturing, digital transformation, and the use of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) to enter the continent. Finally, it recommends that Korea enhance its 'aid for trade' initiatives, focusing on infrastructure project preparation and support for African SMEs to foster mutually beneficial relations.

The report examines Zimbabwe's stalled transition following the 2017 ousting of Robert Mugabe and the 2018 elections. It argues that while President Emmerson Mnangagwa has adopted an 'open for business' slogan, genuine international re-engagement is blocked by a profound deficit of trust, persistent economic instability, and a lack of substantive political reform. The document highlights the role of targeted sanctions, the influence of China, and the critical importance of national dialogue and legislative reform in restoring Zimbabwe's global standing.

The document highlights Southeast Asia as the only region with a growing share of coal-fired power, with 49GW of new coal plants in the pipeline. It argues that transitioning to renewable energy is a 'smart investment' that can reduce annual fossil fuel import bills from 300 to 100 million USD by 2040 and create over 2.2 million jobs. The text outlines five steps for a competitive zero carbon economy: committing to carbon neutrality, prioritizing energy efficiency, redirecting capital flows, providing exit strategies for high-carbon assets, and building new constituencies for the clean economy.

The report highlights the critical energy gap in Africa, where 565 million people lack electricity and 900 million lack clean cooking solutions. It proposes that governments allocate up to 25% of recovery budgets to renewables and localize 30% of the value chain to stimulate GDP and job creation. The document details the socio-economic benefits of sustainable energy in health, agriculture, and gender equality, while providing a framework of eight catalysts—including the removal of fossil fuel subsidies and the implementation of cost-reflective tariffs—to accelerate the transition, using India as a successful comparative example.

The document outlines a strategic framework for Caribbean nations to 'recover better' from the COVID-19 pandemic by investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency. It highlights the economic benefits, such as GDP growth and job creation, and identifies eight key enablers—including the removal of fossil fuel subsidies and the adoption of cost-reflective tariffs—necessary to transition from centralized, fossil-fuel-dependent power systems to resilient, decentralized green energy infrastructures.

The report argues that Africa has a significant opportunity to transition from a 'pit-to-port' resource extraction model to a green industrialization strategy focused on solar PV, batteries, and electric vehicles. It highlights that while Africa holds approximately 30% of the world's essential transition mineral reserves, it lacks investment in manufacturing, with most clean-tech imports originating from G20 countries, particularly China. The document proposes a G20 Action Plan involving a financing roadmap, a dedicated partnerships platform, and reforms to international trade and technology access norms to enable African countries to build competitive local value chains and create millions of green jobs.

The report argues that environmental improvements can enhance competitiveness and proposes a strategy for a European eco-efficient economy based on resource efficiency, new technology markets, and stable global carbon pricing. It emphasizes the need for integrated governance, support for SMEs, and international cooperation to prevent carbon leakage and drive global climate action.

This research paper, prepared by the Stockholm Environment Institute for the New Climate Economy, examines the health, economic, and environmental impacts of traditional biomass cooking in sub-Saharan Africa. It analyzes the challenges of transitioning to clean cooking energy and provides case studies from Mali, Ghana, Ethiopia, and Kenya to identify success factors for scaling up improved cookstove interventions.

The document argues that Colombia's forestry sector, despite its resilience to COVID-19, faces systemic challenges including high informality, lack of unified institutional vision, and inadequate financing. It highlights that 42% of produced timber is estimated to be illegal and that deforestation persisted during the pandemic, with over 75,000 hectares lost in the Colombian Amazon in early 2020. The brief recommends strengthening the Forest Monitoring and Carbon System (SMByC), creating a national forestry observatory, reforming the Forest Incentive Certificate (CIF), and promoting community forestry concessions to integrate small producers into the formal economy and meet 2030 GDP targets for the forestry economy.

The document serves as a journalistic guide to the just energy transition in Colombia. It distinguishes between the country's clean electrical matrix and its fossil-fuel-dependent energy matrix, highlighting the potential for non-conventional renewable energy sources (FNCER) and the strategic importance of transition minerals like copper and lithium. It argues that a just transition must protect social and environmental rights and suggests that decarbonization offers greater employment opportunities than continuing with natural gas. The guide also addresses the environmental risks of mining and the specific case of Vaca Muerta in Argentina as a cautionary example of non-conventional hydrocarbon extraction.

The report 'Jakarta Bukan untuk Semua Orang' critiques the current state of mobility in Jakarta, where traffic congestion and inadequate public transport create significant financial and health burdens for citizens. It argues that the classification of transportation as a 'non-basic mandatory affair' under Law No. 23 of 2014 leads to budget cuts and a lack of political will. The document advocates for a shift toward integrated, affordable public transport and electric buses, noting that electric bus operational costs in 2024 were approximately 9% lower than diesel buses.

The document provides the technical and financial basis for LCOE ranges for electricity generation technologies. It specifies that all technologies are assumed to be online in 2015, with costs expressed in real 2010 dollars over a 20-year recovery period. The analysis incorporates overnight capital costs, fixed charge rates, O&M costs, and fuel price assumptions, while accounting for federal tax credits, loan guarantees for nuclear power, and future carbon prices.

The report argues that the United States can technologically and economically achieve deep emission cuts through a multi-pronged strategy. Central to this is a cap-and-trade system with auctioned allowances, which would fund clean energy investments and international forest preservation. The strategy includes implementing energy efficiency resource standards, a national renewable electricity standard of 25% by 2025, and tougher vehicle emission caps. Internationally, it emphasizes the cost-effectiveness of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) in tropical nations. The author asserts that the nation can reduce emissions by at least 35% below 2005 levels by 2020 through domestic action and international funding.