大象传媒

Finance

There is a global call for more climate finance to support Low and Middle-Income Countries and fund adaptation. However, roughly $4.8 trillion has been channeled into climate action, with .

Global foreign direct investment (FDI) faced a 2% decrease in 2023, with a deeper decline exceeding 10% for the second consecutive year, driven by trade tensions and economic slowdowns.

 has called for urgent reforms to the global debt architecture in response to the alarming increase in developing countries' external sovereign debt.

Global growth is projected to slow for the third year in a row, almost three-quarters of a percentage point below the average of the 2010s.

Rural people help the world flourish and by investing in them, a new day is possible. Here are of 2023.

鈥淭here is talent, there is potential, there is brilliance in all parts of the world. There's a new Einstein, there's a new Malala, you name the brilliant people around the world. But some of them have been denied the chance, even now, to have even the most basic education at school. And so, if 260 million school aged children are not going to school today, or any day, what a waste.鈥

A committed public servant, Gordon Brown has a strong sense of social responsibility. Now United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is working towards a powerful vision: giving every child the chance to go to school.

Modern slavery, trafficking, and child marriage are just some of the factors that contribute to an eyewatering 16% of youth worldwide missing out on school. In this episode, Gordon Brown reflects on the power of education to unleash hidden talent, on his own political legacy, and on why he still believes collaboration is the key to solving global crises.

鈥淭he lesson for me of all the recent crises is [that] cooperation is an essential element of the new world we're in鈥 we waste our resources by everybody doing their own thing.鈥

Photo: 漏UN Photo/Jaclyn Licht

For small-scale farmers, the climate nightmare is real, and they are severely underfunded. They urgently need support to adapt to a changing world. Here are to action from . 

A by highlights the urgency of crisis-resilient development finance for Least Developed Countries (LDCs).

launches the identifying seven ways to increase financing, including through domestic expenditure and international and private sector finance, to mitigate the rising climate change impacts.

holds the (16-20 October) to mobilize financing for climate action, clean energy, health care, food security and other development needs. According to UNCTAD's , overlapping crises such as the war in Ukraine, high food and energy prices, and debt pressures led to a 12% decline in global foreign direct investment in 2022. More than 7,000 stakeholders from 160 countries for the Forum (). Dr. Thani Al Zeyoudi, UAE's minister of state for foreign trade, said UNCTAD can play a major role in addressing and ultimately mitigating these interlocking issues.

global public debt has reached colossal levels, standing at $92 trillion in 2022. This five-fold surge in public debt levels since 2000 demands immediate action to tackle the escalating crisis affecting developing countries. On average, African countries pay four times more for borrowing than the United States and eight times more than the wealthiest European economies. A total of 52 countries 鈥 almost 40 percent of the developing world 鈥 are in serious debt trouble with half of all developing nations spend a minimum of 7.4% of their export revenues on servicing external public debt.

鈥淢aking the most of remittances and diaspora investments can, paradoxically, curb the need for more to migrate. These flows are great contributors to the wellbeing of millions,鈥 said 脕lvaro Lario, the President the UN鈥檚 International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) at the opening session of the Global Forum on Remittances, Investment and Development (GFRID) in Nairobi.

Officially recorded remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are estimated to grow by 1.4% to $656 billion in 2023 as economic activity in remittance source countries is set to soften, limiting employment and wage gains for migrants, according to the World Bank鈥檚 latest  released on 13 June 2023. This edition of the Brief also revises upwards 2022鈥檚 growth in remittance flows to 8%, reaching $647 billion. 

Global growth has slowed sharply and the risk of financial stress in emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) is intensifying, according to the 鈥檚 latest report. In EMDEs other than China, growth is set to slow to 2.9% this year from 4.1% last year. With increasingly high interest rates and restrictive global credit conditions, one out of every four EMDEs has effectively lost access to international bond markets. Growth projections for 2023 are less than half from a year ago, making EMDEs highly vulnerable to additional shocks.

A smiling woman holds out her flip mobile phone.

Over 50 per cent of remittances are sent to households in rural areas, where 75 per cent of the world's poor and food-insecure live. Rural households rely on these flows for improving their livelihoods. Globally, the accumulated flows to rural areas over the next five years will reach US$1.5 trillion. This International Day of Family Remittances (16 June) focuses on promoting digital technologies to enhance financial inclusion in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The Day also aims at achieving the cost reduction target of 3% as mentioned in the Sustainable Development Goal 10.c.