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The report assesses the legal frameworks for artisanal gold mining in UEMOA member states, identifying significant gaps in strategic planning, institutional coordination, and regulatory alignment. It highlights that most national laws are reactive and out of touch with field realities, particularly regarding mechanization and environmental protection. The document recommends the creation of 'reserved gold mining zones' as an integrated approach to formalize the sector, introduce cleaner gravimetric processing technologies, and improve fiscal collection and social protections for vulnerable miners.

The document explores the challenges of maintaining a free and independent media in a datafied society, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. It analyzes the rise of state surveillance in Latin America, the failure of health communication in India, and the struggle for media sustainability. It also advocates for linguistic rights and a new 'digital social contract' to reclaim data ownership from global corporations.

The document argues that the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) process is uniquely suited to support peacebuilding in fragile states because its long-term, holistic, and participatory nature aligns with the timelines and goals of conflict recovery. It highlights that climate risks and conflict often share drivers, such as poverty and weak governance, and that failure to adapt can exacerbate resource competition. The briefing provides examples of countries like Sudan, Burkina Faso, and Palestine that have integrated conflict dynamics into their NAPs, while noting ongoing challenges such as the lack of climate data in conflict zones and the exclusion of refugees from planning processes.

The document argues that for fragile states, climate change and conflict often share drivers and mutually reinforce each other, making the integration of adaptation planning and peacebuilding essential. It highlights how the NAP process, through its long-term, holistic, and participatory nature, can serve as a platform for conflict prevention and trust-building. The text provides examples from countries like Sudan, Burkina Faso, and Palestine where climate adaptation is used to mitigate resource-based conflicts or where active conflict severely hinders adaptation capacity. It concludes by identifying key challenges, including the need for transboundary planning and the inclusion of marginalized populations like refugees.

The Global Futures project uses a new integrated environment-economy model to quantify the economic risks of biodiversity loss. Under a 'Business-as-Usual' scenario, the loss of six key ecosystem services is projected to reduce annual global GDP by 0.67% by 2050, totaling a cumulative loss of US$ 9.87 trillion. Conversely, a 'Global Conservation' scenario could result in a net annual gain of US$ 490 billion compared to the BAU scenario. The report highlights that low-income countries and coastal infrastructure in high-income nations are most vulnerable, and recommends a 'New Deal for Nature and People' including the protection of 30% of land and oceans.

The executive summary highlights that current WTO disciplines fail to significantly limit the agricultural subsidies of major providers like the US and EU, nor do they adequately address the growing support from emerging economies like China and India. It suggests that reforming these rules is essential for achieving Sustainable Development Goal 2 (Zero Hunger) and ensuring global food system stability, especially amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors propose simplifying rules by introducing a minimum level of trade-distorting support based on a percentage of production value, implementing stricter transparency requirements, and establishing new, gradually decreasing global limits on internal support to correct international inequalities.

The document highlights that current WTO disciplines fail to constrain high levels of trade-distorting support in major economies like the US, EU, China, and India, while hindering the ability of other members to invest in food security. It proposes simplifying rules through new overall limits tied to agricultural output, increased transparency, and special treatment for developing countries.

The analysis of 19 National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) reveals that while most countries recognize ecosystem vulnerability and include some EbA measures, these are often generic and lack explicit links to specific climate risks or measurable outcomes. Latin American countries show the strongest integration of EbA and biodiversity strategies. Significant gaps exist in urban EbA, private sector involvement, and the identification of financial resources, suggesting a need for more SMART objectives and intersectoral integration to enhance human and ecological resilience.

The document outlines a framework for building a resilient 1.5-degree world, focusing on three pillars: resilient economies, people/communities, and environments. It emphasizes the need to bring adaptation and resilience investment on par with mitigation, noting that current resilience finance is only around 5%. The report highlights specific global initiatives, such as the Insuresilience Global Partnership and the CRAFT fund, and provides a detailed annex of stakeholder contributions regarding data access, nature-based solutions, and the empowerment of marginalized groups.

The commentary asserts that bold climate action is not a trade-off with economic growth but an engine for it, potentially delivering $26 trillion in net global economic benefits by 2030. It advocates for 'people-centered climate action' that uses inclusive processes to unlock benefits for marginalized groups, such as recycling carbon pricing revenues to support low-income households. The text provides sector-specific opportunities in energy, urban planning, and food systems, while emphasizing that adaptation investments of $1.8 trillion could yield $7.1 trillion in benefits. It highlights real-world examples from Indonesia, Canada, and Spain to demonstrate how low-carbon transitions can reduce poverty and create millions of green jobs.

The National Adaptation Plan (NAP) process is a strategic framework established in 2010 under the Cancun Adaptation Framework to help countries identify and address medium- and long-term climate adaptation priorities. Unlike the earlier National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs) which focused on immediate needs, the NAP process aims to embed adaptation into standard development planning, budgeting, and decision-making. The process consists of three broad phases: planning, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation (M&E). It is designed to be country-driven, gender-responsive, and multi-sectoral, ensuring that adaptation is not treated as a separate environmental issue but as an integral part of national development. The document highlights the NAP process's central role in meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement, specifically Article 7 paragraph 9, and its synergy with Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.

The assessment finds that green finance for forests is severely insufficient, totaling under USD 22 billion since 2010, and represents only 1.5% of total climate mitigation commitments from developed countries and multilateral institutions. While some domestic initiatives and Green Climate Fund projects show progress, private sector investment remains dominated by traditional 'grey finance' with few mandatory safeguards to prevent deforestation in commodity supply chains.

The briefing introduces a policy taxonomy for agricultural transformation that categorizes interventions based on their target: agricultural markets, the rural economy, the macroeconomy, or institutions. It emphasizes the concept of 'anti-agricultural bias'—where policies favor other sectors like industry over agriculture—and argues that removing this bias is a critical precondition for successful agricultural transformation, citing Brazil and Vietnam as positive examples and Ethiopia, Malawi, Togo, and Uganda as countries where such bias persists.

The report analyzes agricultural transformation across 117 countries from 1970 to 2015, identifying six phases of transformation and five structural contexts based on land fertility, availability, and population dynamics. It argues that successful transformation requires a tailored mix of 'push' strategies (increasing agricultural productivity) or 'pull' strategies (growing non-agricultural sectors), depending on a country's endowments. Key drivers of success include removing 'anti-agricultural bias' in price policies, strategic public investment in R&D and extension services, and critical institutional reforms such as land redistribution. The report provides specific policy recommendations for 13 focus countries in Africa and Asia, matching them with historically successful 'analogue' countries based on their 2015 structural contexts.

The report analyzes the gender-specific vulnerabilities in Togo's climate-sensitive sectors and provides a framework for integrating gender into the National Adaptation Plan (NAP). It identifies systemic barriers, such as limited land rights and low literacy for women, and recommends sex-disaggregated indicators and inclusive decision-making across agriculture, water, energy, and health sectors.

The report examines the actions of 14 African countries at the UN Human Rights Council in 2017. It finds that the African Group is no longer a unified voting bloc, with significant divergence in how members approach human rights. Botswana, Ghana, and Rwanda are identified as the strongest defenders of international human rights among the group, while Burundi, Egypt, and Nigeria are characterized as the most antagonistic. The analysis highlights a recurring tension between the principle of national sovereignty and the universality of human rights, particularly regarding 'item 4' resolutions that mandate investigations into specific countries without their consent.

The project aims to protect approximately 400,000 beneficiaries in the Mono-TOGO basin through a two-pronged approach: strengthening institutional and community capacity for Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) and implementing ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) measures. Key activities include the development of a drought and flood risk early warning system, the installation of hydrological monitoring equipment, and the implementation of riverine stabilization and soil conservation measures across an estimated 40,000 hectares. The project requests USD 16 million in grant funding from the Green Climate Fund, with a total indicative cost of USD 46 million, to address technical and financial barriers in a region where agriculture is a primary economic driver but highly vulnerable to climate extremes.

The document examines how insurance can support climate adaptation by providing financial resilience and risk-identification expertise. It distinguishes between indemnity and parametric products, discusses government interventions to bridge the 'protection gap', and argues that insurance must be integrated into a broader fiscal framework and physical resilience strategy to avoid moral hazard and ensure long-term sustainability.

The document examines the synergies and challenges of aligning the NAP and NDC processes under the Paris Agreement. It argues that because the NDC provides high-level direction and the NAP elaborates implementation strategies, they are complementary tools. Based on dialogues with 16 countries and workshops in Grenada and Peru, the brief identifies that most countries currently have informal alignment and suggests using the 2020 NDC update cycle to integrate NAP results, improve data quality, and enhance adaptation goals.

The document provides a comparative overview of National Adaptation Plan (NAP) processes in multiple countries, detailing their specific strategic approaches, priority sectors, and implementation milestones. It emphasizes the integration of climate adaptation into national development planning, the importance of cross-sectoral coordination, and the mobilization of climate finance to build resilience against diverse hazards such as sea-level rise, droughts, and extreme weather events.