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This research paper analyzes the Global Goal for Adaptation (GGA) under the Paris Agreement, focusing on the proposals of the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) to achieve parity between mitigation and adaptation. It argues that while the Paris Agreement establishes the GGA, its operationalisation requires clearer guidelines on minimum information for adaptation communications (a-NDCs) to allow for the aggregation of data and the assessment of adequacy during the global stocktake. The paper highlights the significant domestic investments made by developing countries like Ethiopia and Uganda and calls for a hybrid approach—combining bottom-up national needs with top-down scientific benchmarks from the IPCC—to determine and provide adequate adaptation support.

This policy briefing argues that subnational governments and cities are essential for implementing international climate agreements but are often excluded from the formal negotiating tables of the UNFCCC. It highlights the role of transnational actors like ICLEI in bridging this gap and recommends a shift toward 'co-production' between national and local governments to ensure climate targets are implementable at the local scale.

This report by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) estimates the public and private investment required to end hunger by 2030, defining the goal as reducing the hungry population to less than 5 per cent of a country's population.

This research paper examines the commercial tax evasion component of illicit financial flows (IFFs) in five African countries: Nigeria, South Africa, Morocco, Zambia, and Egypt. It clarifies the distinctions between transfer pricing, abusive transfer pricing, trade mispricing, and trade-based money laundering (TBML), while estimating the scale of these flows using IMF Direction of Trade Statistics (DOTS) and a developed TBML model. The authors highlight significant data anomalies in international trade databases and advocate for the implementation of the Unique Consignment Reference (UCR) to improve accuracy and curb illicit outflows.

This briefing by the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) examines how South Africa can maximize the benefits of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) before its 2025 expiration and evaluates three potential frameworks for future trade relations with the United States: a 'simple' approach, a Partial Scope Agreement (PSA), and a comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

The research paper argues that Southern Africa remains largely excluded from global value chains due to poor infrastructure, weak manufacturing, and a lack of data. It highlights that while South Africa has a strong services component in its exports, the broader region should leverage agro-processing and services liberalisation to drive economic growth and regional integration.

This research paper proposes an optimization-based method for selecting a small number of relevant scenarios from large sets generated by computer simulations, combining criteria for both policy vulnerability and future diversity. The method was tested on climate resilient infrastructure cases for three African river basins.

The 2016 SAIIA Young Leaders Declaration is a statement of recommendations from South African youth aimed at implementing the COP 21 Paris Agreement, the African Union's Agenda 2063, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The document outlines specific demands for municipal, provincial, and national governments across five key areas: accountability, education, basic needs, economic development, and stakeholder engagement, while concluding with a pledge of youth commitment to these global and national goals.

This fact sheet provides a quantitative overview of the South African beef industry, detailing production distribution, supply chain integration, and international trade patterns including key import and export partners.

This paper pilots the use of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to identify the combinations of factors that lead to the uptake of development research by policy-makers. Analyzing 20 projects from the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN), the study finds that while high research credibility is a necessary 'gatekeeper' condition, uptake typically occurs through three distinct causal pathways. The most common pathway (80% of cases) combines credibility, strong communication, stakeholder engagement, explicit demand, and influence on discourse. The authors suggest QCA is a powerful tool for testing Theory of Change assumptions but note it is resource-intensive and requires specific technical expertise.

This briefing describes the Restoration Diagnostic, a structured method developed by the World Resources Institute (WRI) to identify key success factors (KSFs) necessary for the effective implementation of forest landscape restoration (FLR) projects.

In a 2016 address, SAIIA National Chairman Fred T Phaswana discusses the intersection of South Africa's domestic political and economic crises with global instability. He highlights the erosion of South Africa's international leadership due to internal corruption and poor growth, while contrasting these failures with the success of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Programme (REI4P) and global multilateral agreements on climate and development.

This policy brief details the Obama Administration's fiscal year (FY) 2017 federal budget proposal, focusing on investments in clean energy, sustainable transportation, energy-efficient buildings, and climate action. The proposal emphasizes doubling clean energy research and development by 2021 and introduces a crude oil tax to fund transportation sustainability.

Nigel Sizer, outgoing director of the World Resources Institute's (WRI) Forests program, reflects on the development of monitoring and restoration initiatives and the increasing role of the private sector in forest conservation prior to his transition to president of the Rainforest Alliance.

A statement by the Global Resilience Partnership detailing the severe impacts of the 2015-2016 El Niño, including food insecurity for over 17 million people and specific crises in Ethiopia, Indonesia, and India, while calling for adaptive resilience measures.

This case study describes a partnership between the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) and the telecommunications company MTN to develop a security and intelligence system for operations in volatile markets.

This reference manual, published by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) in 2016, provides a detailed framework for countries to plan the implementation of their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement. It is structured into five core modules: governance, mitigation, adaptation, finance, and measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV). The guide offers a step-by-step approach to identifying institutional gaps, designing policies, mobilizing funding, and establishing tracking systems, supplemented by international case studies to illustrate best practices in climate action planning.

This executive summary introduces a World Resources Report framework for creating more equal, productive, and sustainable cities, focusing specifically on 'struggling' and 'emerging' cities in the Global South. It identifies critical challenges in urban population growth and service delivery, proposing that equitable access to core services—housing, water, energy, and transportation—can serve as a catalyst for broader urban transformation.

This international statement, issued by Friends of the Earth International and various social movements, criticizes the emergence of corporate-focused guides that reinterpret the 2012 Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure (VGGT). The authors argue that these guides shift the focus from human rights to business risk management, inappropriately transfer state responsibilities to private investors, and promote a false equivalence between corporations and marginalized communities.

This international statement, published by Friends of the Earth International and signed by various social movements and civil society organizations, criticizes the emergence of operational guides that adapt the UN's Voluntary Guidelines for the Responsible Governance of Tenure (VGGT) for the benefit of private investors and corporations. The authors argue that these guides shift the focus from human rights to commercial risk management, inappropriately transfer state governance responsibilities to private actors, and promote a false parity between corporations and marginalized communities.